DOHA, Qatar — The start of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban was delayed on Thursday, with no clear picture of when — or even if — they will restart.
Diplomats were still engaged in discussions about how the Taliban are presenting themselves at their new office here. After Afghan officials angrily announced they would not participate in the talks because the Taliban raised their flag along with a banner reading “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,” American officials asked the Qataris to get the Taliban to remove such emblems of legitimacy.
The banner was removed by Wednesday night, and the flag – on a pole in the compound of the Taliban office -- disappeared from view around the same time. But Thursday morning, in better light, it became apparent that their flag was still flying, albeit on a flagpole that had been shortened a couple yards so the flag could not be seen above the wall by the general public.
It could only be seen through gaps in the high wall — which is where Afghan Embassy officials were seen Thursday morning, snapping photographs of the scene.
An Afghan official in Doha refused to comment on whether the Taliban had met the government’s terms in a way that would reinstate the Afghan delegation to talks.
Meanwhile, several of the Taliban delegates were giving telephone interviews Thursday. The Associated Press quoted one of the top representatives, Ahmad Suhail Shaheen, as saying that the Taliban were ready to release their only American prisoner of war, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in exchange for senior Taliban prisoners being held at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
The release of the Guantánamo prisoners has been a central sticking point in moving the peace process forward for roughly 18 months now, according to American and Afghan officials. Taliban officials have made the release a prerequisite both for talks and the release of Sergeant Bergdahl, who has been held by insurgents since 2009.
Speaking from Qatar in a telephone interview with an A.P. reporter in Islamabad, Pakistan, Mr. Shaheen said Sergeant Bergdahl “is as far as I know in good condition.”
The American negotiator who was expected to begin the first round of talks with the Taliban, James Dobbins, remained in Washington on Thursday. And although Secretary of State John Kerry was due here on Saturday, that was for an international conference on Syria, not the Taliban. Officials in Washington said they hoped the talks could move forward as planned in the next few days.
Even if the main American negotiators do show up soon, the Afghans have said they are still unhappy with the terms of the new office’s existence after Taliban delegates there gave a succession of interviews.
President Hamid Karzai had made it clear that his government was only reluctantly agreeing to the idea of a Taliban office in Qatar – and then only to start peace talks so they could be moved to Afghan soil, which the Taliban have rejected. Once the Taliban declared that they viewed the office as a place to give interviews to the press, meet international officials and diplomats, the Afghan government rejected any talks there.
The issue of a banner declaring it the office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan — the name of the former Taliban regime – only deepened that concern, and a flag suggested it was in effect a Taliban embassy, Afghan officials said.
A statement by the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, quoted by the Qatar News Agency, said that the office should be known as “the Political Bureau of the Afghan Taliban in Doha and not the political bureau of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
Visit Source: NYT > Global Home http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/world/asia/taliban-talks-afghanistan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss