Washington: Zalmay Khalilzad, the Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation (SRAR) who brokered the peace deal between the United States and the Taliban, has stepped down and been replaced by veteran American diplomat Thomas West, Secretary of State Tony Blinken said.
“As Special Representative for Afghan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad steps down from his role. I extend my gratitude for his decades of service to the American people,” Blinken said.
“Thomas West, who previously served as the Deputy Special Representative, will be the Special Representative for Afghanistan,” he said.
West, who earlier served on the Vice President’s national security team and the National Security Council staff, will lead diplomatic efforts, advise the Secretary and Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs and coordinate closely with the US.
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In his resignation letter, according to Politico, Khalilzad said, “The political arrangement between the Afghan government and the Taliban did not go forward as envisaged. The reasons for this are too complex and I will share my thoughts in the coming days and weeks.”
“Going forward, I plan to contribute to the discussion and debate about not only what happened but what should be done next,” he said according to Politico.
Current and former US officials told Reuters earlier that in the three years Khalilzad had been in the role, he became the face of one of the largest US diplomatic failures in recent memory.
Khalilzad’s decision comes two months after the US withdrew it’s troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban rose to power. According to CNN, in a letter to Blinken, Khalilzad said he decided it was the right time to step down “at a juncture when we are entering a new phase in our Afghanistan policy.”
Zalmay Khalilzad led the talks with the Taliban in Qatar that resulted in the Doha agreement. After Joe Biden won the election, the administration kept him through the transition, as he continued to try to coordinate a power-sharing agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
In April 2021, Joe Biden announced, that by September 11, US would end it’s 20 year mission in Afghanistan. According to Politico, Khalilzad was one of the first Biden administration officials to admit that the Taliban’s rapid sweep across Afghanistan caught the US flat footed.
He said, “It’s not surprising that with the reduction, or almost complete withdrawal of US forces that was on the side of the Afghan government, that they would make some progress. They have made more progress, perhaps, with the reduction and withdrawal [than] one could have analytically predicted.”
Following US troops withdrawal , the chaos and mayhem that occurred in Afghanistan invited many people to criticize Zalmay Khalilzad’s strategy. As Politico reported, Bill Roggio of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies said that, “”It is about time he stopped stealing money from the US government. He shoulders a large amount of the blame for shilling for the Taliban,”
According to CNN, since the Taliban have taken control of Afghanistan, the State Department has declined to detail what the plans are for Khalilzad. Last month, spokesman Ned Price acknowledged Khalilzad had returned to the US from Doha and noted that there was now a US diplomatic mission for Afghanistan in Qatar led by another senior diplomat.
(With inputs from PTI)