According to sources within the Taliban movement, the UN has been steadily removing the names of their political leadership from the terror blacklist for the past nine months. This is meant to facilitate ongoing US-Taliban peace talks.
The removal from the blacklist is officially “temporary,” and it’s not
exactly clear who all has been removed. Everyone at the Taliban’s office
in Qatar is removed from the list, and indications are everyone else
involved in US talks has been as well.
The UN has not confirmed this move at all, and neither has the Afghan
government, but the reports present it as both a confidence-building
measure as well as a practical necessity for organizing and holding
talks.
Talks between the US and Taliban have been making progress, and a deal
is starting to come together, based around the US withdrawing from
Afghanistan and the Taliban promising to keep ISIS and al-Qaeda out of
the country in the future.
UN Lifting Sanctions on Key Taliban Leaders to Support Negotiations
All Taliban at Qatar office have been removed from the UN blacklist
Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.
Join the Discussion!
We welcome thoughtful and respectful comments. Hateful language, illegal content, or attacks against Antiwar.com will be removed.
For more details, please see our Comment Policy.
