This Thursday Afghanistan released six persons in the last batch of Taliban prisoners, which has laid the way for Intra-Afghan talks which are scheduled to begin today in Doha, Qatar. The talks come as a follow up to the agreement between US and Taliban formalized on February 29, 2020, in the backdrop of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. The talks coincidentally fall just one day after the nineteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the USA which triggered a massive manhunt for OBL in Afghanistan by the US-led forces. The hopes for the talks were almost extinguished when an assassination attempt was taken on the life of the Afghan Vice president Arullah Saleh which caused the death of 10 persons standing nearby. That attack was too was on the anniversary of the killing of the Ahmad Shah Masood of Northern Alliance, also known as the Lion of Panjshir. This Northern alliance was a united military front operating against the Taliban in Afghanistan with support from India, Russia, Iran, the USA, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The role of Arullah Saleh was critical in the anti-Taliban movement in Afghanistan. He had specifically retorted Pakistan in its double game when Trump had criticized the Pak in their mellowed anti-terror efforts. This makes Saleh’s absence from the Afghan talks at Doha all the more worrying.

These talks were initially planned to begin on March 10th. Since the Afghanistan government was excluded, the pre-condition promise of release of 5000 Taliban prisoners by Afghan US special representative Zalmay Khalilzad was held back. Afghans were not willing to release the Talibanis as there was no proven reduction in the violence as promised by the Taliban. Pressure from the US administration, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani began releasing the Talibani prisoners in batches.

The talks are going in parallel to the withdrawal of troops by the USA, under the commitment made in the February 29th to reduce the number of US troops from 12000 to 8600, and shut down a total of five bases in a time window of 135 days. The talks would cover the issues on the ceasefire and joint implementation of a future political roadmap for the peaceful development of Afghanistan.

There are serious doubts about the success of the talks as the Taliban has suggested numerous times that they envision a return to the Taliban emirate model of the 1996-2001 time period. The Afghans are hoping to pull the talks till the US election where the arrival of Joe Biden can ensure them strong support against the Taliban. On the other hand, the US has been planning to get the troops’ withdrawal done and dusted before the November election.

The chief negotiator in the talks from the Talibani side is Shiekh Abdul Hakim, who had been the chief justice of the Talibani judiciary. He is a scholar-clergy man from nonmilitary background. Another Talibani, Mullah Baradar, released in 2018 from ISI captivity and a signatory in the February 29th -US Taliban agreement will also be present in the Afghan talks. Anas Haqqani would be representing the Haqqani network in the talks.

On an international scale, Russia had expressed its concern in the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organization meetings over Afghanistan banning some parties from the Afghan peace talks of Doha. Turkey would be hosting some rounds of the Afghan talks. It has hailed the importance of the Afghan peace talks. This is significant in the context that Turkey is a key member of the Istanbul Process, a multinational coalition (consisting of central Asian countries, India, UAE, China, Turkey, Pakistan, and others) formed with the intent to bring peace to Afghanistan.