On Tuesday, the first face-to-face meeting between representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government happened in the United Arab Emirates. However, it's a very long road from sitting down to actually hammering out an agreement to end the 17-year-long war that all sides can live with.
An Afghan delegation joined talks in Abu Dhabi Tuesday, where the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were already engaged with representatives from the Taliban, a Sunni Muslim insurgent group that once ruled Afghanistan before the US and its allies drove them from power in late 2001.
“There is no plan to meet the Kabul administration,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesperson, told reporters on Monday. “There is no possibility of the presence of the Kabul administration in the meeting.”
The Taliban see the Afghan government in Kabul as a US puppet, and the administration holds little sway outside the capital.
The country has been in a state of war since October 2001, when the US led a massive air campaign and invasion against the Taliban, which it blamed for sponsoring the terrorist network al-Qaeda, responsible for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed over 3,000 Americans. Although the Taliban were quickly driven from power, they and other militia groups have continually evaded defeat, resulting in a prolonged guerilla conflict that has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
As a consequence, the Taliban have so far refused to engage in peace…
