Tuesday, August 24, 2021
High level discussions in Kabul
CIA chief meets Taliban leaders
Monday was possibly the highest-ranking meeting ever between the US and the Taliban. CIA Director William Burns apparently went to Kabul to meet Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the deputy head of the Islamists. He is traded as the future head of government of Afghanistan.
According to a media report, William Burns, the director of the US Foreign Intelligence Service (CIA), met the deputy chief of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, for a personal interview. The two met on Monday in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, wrote the Washington Post, citing government circles.
It was the highest-ranking meeting ever between the government of US President Joe Biden and the Taliban since Islamists came to power in Afghanistan just a week ago. The CIA did not want to comment on the request. Baradar is traded as a potential future head of government.
Exchange “several times a day”
The US government is in regular contact with the Taliban in the wake of an evacuation operation at the airport in the capital, Kabul. US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that he was being communicated “multiple times a day”. He did not want to comment in more detail on communications with Islamists.
At present the question arises whether the international evacuation operation in Kabul can possibly be extended beyond 31 August. Biden had originally promised to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by that date. The Taliban insists the Americans keep this promise and called the August 31 deadline a “red line” that must not be crossed.
However, it is doubtful whether it will be possible to evacuate all foreign nationals and Afghan aid workers from the country by then. This topic will also come up in the video switch of heads of state and government of seven major western industrialized countries on Tuesday.
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