Pompeo meets Afghan rivals, discusses peace deal and political crisis

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Kabul on Monday in a surprise trip to war-torn Afghanistan, where a highly-touted peace initiative appears to have derailed amid rivalry among the country’s leaders.

Pompeo met President Ashraf Ghani and Ghani’s former electoral opponent Abdullah Abdullah.

A spokesman for the presidential palace said Pompeo and Ghani talked about the Afghan peace process, the need to forge consensus on its next steps, as well as political and security issues.

Abdullah wrote on his official Facebook page that he also met with Pompeo and discussed the “need for solving the ongoing political crisis.”

A political drama is playing out between the last election’s two main presidential candidates: incumbent Ghani, who was declared the winner, and Abdullah, who rejected the results.

The standoff comes after the Taliban militant group agreed to a peace deal last month with the United States, which plans to scale back its troop numbers in Afghanistan after almost two decades of conflict.

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But talks between the Afghan government and the militants have stalled over a prisoner swap, with the rifts among the country’s leadership frustrating the way forward.

The US special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said last week Washington would like to see the prisoner releases begin soon.

According to the agreement, up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners should be released ahead of intra-Afghan negotiations that had been planned to start earlier this month and which would include the militants. The talks have not started.

Pompeo’s trip, which was not previously announced, comes just days after his State Department urged against all international travel due to the risks posed by the coronavirus pandemic. (dpa)