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Zalmay Khalilzad has been under pressure since the fall of the Afghan government and the takeover of the Taliban.
The US State Department announced that less than two months after the United States withdrew from Afghanistan’s chaos and the Taliban took over the country, Zalmay Khalilzad, the top US envoy to Afghanistan, will step down.
Secretary of State Anthony Brinken said in a statement on Monday that Khalilzad will be replaced by his deputy Tom West, and pointed out that West will work with the U.S. Embassy in Doha in relation to the U.S. in Afghanistan. Close cooperation with interests.
Brinken’s statement said: “As the Afghanistan Reconciliation Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad steps down, I thank him for serving the American people for decades.”
“I thank Ambassador Khalilzad for his service and welcome Special Representative West to this post.”
A person familiar with the situation who asked not to be named told Reuters that Khalilzad submitted his resignation on Friday.
His departure came after the Biden administration’s first formal meeting with the Taliban after the U.S. withdrawal in Doha in early October.
In a letter to Secretary of State Anthony Brinken, Khalilzad defended his record, but admitted that he failed to do so, and stated that he wanted to make way for “a new phase of our Afghanistan policy.”
Agence France-Presse quoted him as saying: “The political arrangement between the Afghan government and the Taliban did not proceed as expected.”
“The reasons for this are too complicated, and I will share my thoughts in the coming days and weeks.”
‘Facing diplomatic failure’
Khalilzad was born in Afghanistan and has held this position since 2018. He took the lead in negotiating with the Taliban and finally reached an agreement to withdraw US troops this year in February 2020.
Although he belongs to the Republican Party, when Biden defeated Donald Trump and decided to continue withdrawing, Khalilzad remained in place.
He then pressured hard-line armed groups and the former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, backed by the West, to negotiate a political solution to the decades-old conflict.
In mid-August, as the Taliban swept the country and entered the capital Kabul without opposition, the government collapsed.
Khalilzad, who gave the Taliban so many concessions in advance, agreed to release 5,000 tuberculosis prisoners in the absence of the former Afghan government. “Before everything is agreed, nothing is reached.” It’s just a slogan. https://t.co/i4hjJHOsZm
-BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) October 18, 2021
Khalilzad had to seek assistance from the armed group to help the United States evacuate American citizens working for the US government and Afghans in danger.
Current and former U.S. officials earlier told Reuters that during the three years Khalilzad held the position, he became one of the most significant diplomatic failures in recent memory of the United States.
The U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said that the senior U.S. diplomat had given up his influence to armed groups, continued to undermine the Afghan government, and had little interest in hearing different views within the U.S. government.
Khalilzad recently defended his record in an interview with “Foreign Policy” magazine, saying that the Taliban had fulfilled key parts of the February 2020 agreement, including not attacking the US military that was about to leave.
“I respect those who say that we should not negotiate with the Taliban in the absence of the government. But we don’t know how much fighting will be required for the Taliban to agree to this,” he said.
But because the United States has no interest in adding troops again in its longest war, “we lose to the Taliban every year,” he said.
“Time is not on our side.”
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