While U.S. special envoy, James Dobbin, was on his way to Qatar, the Karzai government decided to shift gears. The Afghan authorities have changed their minds about sending a High Peace Council delegation to negotiate with the Taliban in Doha.

Initially, negotiations were slated to begin next week with Afghanistan, the United States and the Taliban sitting around the same table. For this purpose, Qatar had given the Taliban the green light to set up an office in Doha [1].

However, there are two issues that President Hamid Karzai is adamant about:
– He refuses to have the negotiations chaired by the United States, thus placing the legal Afghan government and Taliban insurgents in the same position. He therefore insists on chairing debates himself.
– He does not accept the name of the Taliban representation, who inaugurated its office under the label of "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," hoisting the flag of the old regime.

To put pressure on Washington, President Hamid Karzai has suspended talks with the United States relating to the Bilateral Security Agreement which is supposed to define the conditions for retaining nine U.S. military bases in Afghanistan after the official withdrawal of NATO combat troops at the end of 2014 [2].

Hamid Karzai, who has dual US-Afghan citizenship, was imposed by Washington as president of Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2002. However, he has never been in a position to extend his authority outside the capital, which lives under a form of dictatorship. Become immensely rich, he controls the essence of the world’s opium and heroin production, that had been banned by the Taliban.

Inauguration of the political office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in Doha. Flag raising on the premises.


– "Le Pakistan exploite le pavot afghan", Réseau Voltaire, 19 April 2005.
– "The geopolitics behind the phony US war in Afghanistan”, by F. William Engdahl, Voltaire Network, 21 October 2009.
– “Afghanistan: Opium, the CIA and the Karzai Administration”, by Peter Dale Scott, Voltaire Network, 13 December 2010,
– "Le partenaire afghan de Monti", by Manlio Dinucci, Il Manifesto (Italy), Réseau Voltaire, 9 November 2012.
– “The NATO Afghanistan War and US-Russian Relations: Drugs, Oil, and War”, by Peter Dale Scott, Voltaire Network, 7 June 2013.

[1] "Taliban officially opening office in Qatar”, Voltaire Network, 18 June 2013.

[2] "Afghanistan Suspends Current Afghan-US Talks on Bilateral Security Agreement", Office of the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, 19 June 2013.