Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's office on Sunday said real peace was only possible when the Taliban stopped their violence and held direct talks with the government.
"Real peace will come when Taliban agree to a ceasefire," Ghani's officials said in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's canceling peace talks with the Taliban's "major leaders" at a presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland.
Trump on Saturday said he canceled peace talks after the insurgent group claimed responsibility last week for an attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.
The president said he immediately called the talks off when the insurgents said they were behind the attack.
A parking lot near the site where a tractor packed with explosives exploded the night before at the Green Village in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 3, 2019. /VCG Photo
"If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don't have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway," Trump said on Twitter.
Taliban fighters, who now control more territory than at any time since 2001, launched fresh assaults on the northern cities of Kunduz and Pul-e Khumri over the past week and carried out two major suicide bombings in the capital Kabul.
One of the blasts, a suicide attack in Kabul on Thursday, took the life of 34-year-old U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, bringing the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 16.
Security forces and soldiers stand guard after a massive suicide car bombing rocked Afghan capital Kabul's diplomatic enclave, which killed 10 people and left 30 wounded, September 5, 2019. /VCG Photo
A spike in attacks by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan has been "particularly unhelpful" to peace efforts there, a senior U.S. military commander said on Saturday as he visited neighboring Pakistan, where many Taliban militants are believed to be hiding.
U.S. Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees American troops in the region, declined to comment on the diplomatic negotiations themselves.
Earlier this week, U.S. and Taliban negotiators struck a draft peace deal which could lead to a drawdown in U.S. troops from America's longest war. But a wave of Taliban violence has cast a long shadow over the deal.
"It is particularly unhelpful at this moment in Afghanistan's history for the Taliban to ramp up violence," McKenzie told reporters traveling with him.
Kenneth McKenzie, then a nominee for the position of general and commander of the U.S. Central Command, testifies during a Senate Armed Service Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, December 4, 2018. /VCG Photo
McKenzie said for the peace process to move forward, "All parties should be committed to an eventual political settlement," which, in turn, should result in reduced violence.
"If we can't get that going in, then it is difficult to see the parties are going to be able to carry out the terms of the agreement, whatever they might or might not be."
Under the draft accord, thousands of U.S. troops would be withdrawn over the coming months in exchange for guarantees Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States and its allies.
However, a full peace agreement to end more than 18 years of war would depend on subsequent "intra-Afghan" talks. The Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire and instead stepped up operations across the country.
New civil war?
For Afghans, the Taliban's recent escalation of attacks has underscored fears it may be impossible to reach a stable settlement following any complete U.S. withdrawal.
Many have worried about a fracture along ethnic and regional lines, with Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras from the north and west against southern and eastern Pashtuns, the group that has supplied most of Afghanistan's rulers and where the Taliban draw most support.
McKenzie held talks on Saturday with a top Pakistani general in Pakistan.
Mohammad Nabi Omari (2nd L), a Taliban member formerly held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay and reportedly released in 2014 in a prisoner exchange, Taliban negotiator Abbas Stanikzai (2nd R), and former Taliban intelligence deputy Mawlawi Abdul Haq Wasiq (R) walk with another Taliban member during the second day of the Intra Afghan Dialogue talks in the Qatari capital Doha, July 8, 2019. /VCG Photo
More talks are scheduled for Sunday.
McKenzie said he did not know whether any of the planning for the recent wave of attacks in Afghanistan came from Pakistan-based militants.
But McKenzie commended Pakistan for supporting the peace efforts in Afghanistan, in the latest sign of an improvement in long-fraught relations between Washington and Islamabad.
"A lot of Pakistanis have been killed by militant attacks inside Pakistan. I think Pakistan sees the benefits of a stable Afghanistan," McKenzie said.
(With input from Reuters)