Taliban Confirms Progress on US Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Taliban sources familiar with ongoing negotiations say that there has been continued progress on the issue of a US pullout from Afghanistan, and that the deal on getting foreign troops out hinges on guarantees Afghan territory is not used as a threat to other countries.

This of course is the basic framework we’ve been hearing about for weeks. The Taliban says the agreement is gradually advancing, with extensive discussions on working out the specifics of the matter.

Indications are that the focus is increasingly on “minor issues,” with an eye toward finalizing the deal in the near future. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, whose government remains largely on the outside looking in at these talks, doesn’t sound happy.

Ghani’s spokesman warned that the agreement will only be implementable if his government signs off on it. That’s clearly not what either the US or Taliban believe, as both of them believe the important part of the deal reaching a settlement with one another. After all, the Ghani government cannot force the US to stay, nor could they in any real way resist a power-sharing deal if the US mandated one.