Senior Taliban leaders in Qatar for talks with US envoy

Past rounds have focused on US withdrawal of troops, which has been a standing Taliban demand, and guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used again as a staging area for terror attacks on the United States.

Senior Taliban leaders, including one of the group’s founders, were to hold another round of talks Monday in Qatar with Washington’s special peace envoy as U.S. efforts intensify to find a negotiated solution to Afghanistan’s 17-year war, America’s longest.

The Taliban, some of whom arrived in Doha, Qatar’s capital, from Pakistan the previous night, raised expectations ahead of talks with US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad.

“Yes, there is a possibility we will reach some results,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Associated Press.

Leading the Taliban delegation in Doha was Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the movement who was released last year from a Pakistani jail where he had languished since his arrest in a joint Pakistani-CIA operation in 2010.

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US-Taliban talks offer glimmer of hope for peace

A new effort to end the war in Afghanistan is set to begin on February 25 with talks scheduled between the US and the Taliban

Past rounds have focused on US withdrawal of troops, which has been a standing Taliban demand, and guarantees that Afghanistan will not be used again as a staging area for terror attacks on the United States.

Khalilzad is expected to pressure the Taliban to hold direct talks with the government in Kabul, something the insurgents have so far refused to do.