Peace Envoys From Taliban at Loose Ends in Qatar

Banaras Khan/Agence France-Presse — Tayeb Agha, center, the Taliban leader’s chief of staff, in November 2001. He is one of the diplomats stranded in Qatar.

By ROD NORDLAND, NYT
Published: April 9, 2013

DOHA, Qatar — When a handful of Taliban emissaries flew into Qatar on an American plane in 2010, the Obama administration hoped they would help negotiate a peace deal that could stabilize Afghanistan and allow the United States a graceful exit.

Three years after that secret arrival, the Taliban officials remain idle and their political office here remains unused.

“They are just living here enjoying the air-conditioning, driving luxury cars, eating and making babies,” one Afghan diplomat in Qatar said. “It’s all they can do; they have no work to do.”

They are unlikely to see a negotiating table anytime soon either, with the new fighting season in Afghanistan off to a particularly violent start and with the latest push to restart talks all but abandoned. Once again, the Taliban’s attention is on the battlefield, and on what may be gained or lost there as the American military begins its withdrawal from the war.

(More here.)