Top U.S. general meets with Taliban in Qatar

Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with Afghan Taliban negotiators this week in Qatar amid ongoing U.S. troops pullout from Afghanistan, according to multiple media reports on Thursday, reported Xinhua.

Reports said that Milley on Tuesday had a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Taliban negotiators in Doha as part of efforts to broker a negotiated peace settlement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The Pentagon's top military officer then flew to Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday to discuss the peace process with Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani.

"The most important part of the discussions I had with both the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan was the need for an immediate reduction in violence," Milley told reporters traveling with him. "Everything else hinges on that."

Milley's trip came amid rising violence in southern parts of Afghanistan and an ongoing drawdown of the U.S. troops in the country.

The U.S. military in Afghanistan said last Friday that it had carried out a strike against Taliban fighters in defense of government forces in southern Kandahar province.

The war in Afghanistan, which has caused about 2,400 U.S. military deaths, is the longest one in U.S. history. President Donald Trump has long sought a full withdrawal from the country, but some of his senior aides from the military and the Pentagon suggested a condition-based withdrawal, a more cautious approach.

Currently, there are approximately 4,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. The Pentagon last month confirmed that U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be reduced to a 2,500 level by mid-January 2021.

The United States and Afghan Taliban signed an agreement in late February, which called for a full withdrawal of the U.S. military forces from Afghanistan by May 2021 if the Taliban meets the conditions of the deal, including severing ties with terrorist groups.