Pakistani media is quoting an unnamed Taliban leader as saying that a deal “in principle” has been reached between the Afghan insurgent faction and the United States that would lead to the resumption of the stalled Qatar reconciliation talks.
The claim seems to be related to last week’s report from the Associated Press, in which the Obama Administration was considering transferring an unknown number of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Bagram as a conciliatory measure of sorts.
A transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to house arrest in Qatar was the initial plan, in March, but was stalled by the Karzai government sending delegations to try to insinuate itself into the talks. The negotiations ended just days later, when a US soldier massacred 16 Afghan civilians in Kandahar and the Taliban announced that they no longer considered negotiations to be practical.
The new round of talks, if they prove to be confirmed, may be off to a similarly rough start, as the change to transferring the prisoners to Bagram, nominally under Karzai government control, will give them another chance to force their way into negotiations.
The U.S. wants the TAPI line built and in secure operation. It can't do it without cutting a long term deal with the Taliban, and Karzai knows that means that, even though up to now Karzai has been indispensable to the U.S. in advancing the TAPI process, the U.S. would also dump him without second thoughts if that is what it would take.
That Qatar may be intimately involved as has been the case in Syria and Libya may be an indication of where the U.S. is vis a vis Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. (Pepe Escobar's interview by Scott Horton, "Blundering Stupidly into War"shares some interesting insights about Qatar.)