Taliban ceasefire in Afghanistan

The Taliban’s ruling council agreed to a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan, providing a window in which a peace agreement with the US can be signed. Since October 2018, Taliban representatives and US officials have been meeting to chalk out a peace treaty.

Significance of the ceasefire

• A key pillar of the agreement, which the U.S. and Taliban have been hammering out for more than a year, is direct negotiations between Afghans on both sides of the conflict.
• A peace deal would allow the U.S. to bring home its troops from Afghanistan and end its 18-year military engagement there, America’s longest.
• The U.S. wants any deal to include a promise from the Taliban that Afghanistan would not be used as a base by terrorist groups.
• The U.S. currently has an estimated 12,000 troops in Afghanistan.

Expected outcomes

• The first item on the agenda is expected to address how to implement a cease-fire between the Taliban and Afghanistan’s National Security Forces.
• The negotiations, however, were expected to be prickly and will cover a variety of issues including rights of women, free speech, and changes to the country’s constitution.
• The intra-Afghan talks would also lay out the fate of thousands of Taliban fighters and the heavily armed militias belonging to Afghanistan’s warlords.

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US-Taliban Conflict

• Afghanistan has been ravaged by war since 2001 when a US-led coalition overthrew the Taliban.
• Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States was harbored by Taliban.
• The Taliban initially has emerged as a militia – largely consisted of students called as Talibs in 1994.
• This group comprises of militants who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools and fought during the Soviet–Afghan War (ended in 1989).