Taliban co-founder heads to Pakistan as US envoy visits

Taliban co-founder Mullah Baradar was due in Pakistan Wednesday as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad also visited, officials said, though it was unclear if they would meet for the first time since Donald Trump scuttled talks between Washington and the Islamist extremists.

Insurgent spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that the Pakistan visit would be the fourth leg of a tour that included Russia, China and Iran.

Militant sources said the insurgents were set to arrive late Wednesday.

A State Department spokesperson said Khalilzad had spent several days in Islamabad to follow up on conversations between the US President and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan during the United Nations General Assembly in New York last week.

"These meetings do not represent a restart of the Afghan peace process," she said.

Baradar is head of the Taliban's political wing and usually based in Qatar, where for nearly a year the insurgents held face-to-face meetings with a US delegation led by Khalilzad.

The two sides were on the brink of a deal that would have seen Washington begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in return for various security promises from the Taliban.

Trump abruptly declared the talks "dead" last month, however, citing a Taliban attack which had killed a US soldier just days earlier.

The Taliban threatened more violence, but both the insurgents and the US left the door open for negotiations to resume -- with most experts agreeing Washington will have to return to the table eventually.

The Taliban's Doha-based spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, told AFP that the simultaneous visits to Pakistan were a "coincidence".

But when asked whether there was any possibility of the insurgents meeting with Khalilzad, he replied: "Why not? It depends on the Americans."
"We have not backtracked from the agreement, we stand for it. The Americans have backtracked and they will have to take the initiative."