Donald Trump is pushing Afghanistan to close the Taliban’s office in Qatar, a British newspaper reported.
Mr Trump raised the issue with the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, at a meeting on Thursday. Mr Ghani is expected to agree with the closure but a final decision has not been made, The Guardian reported.
The office in Doha opened in 2013 as the US looked for an avenue through which it could conduct talks with the Taliban to end the conflict in Afghanistan.
But the Afghan government says the office has done little to help progress the talks and gives the Taliban political legitimacy. Mr Trump sees it as a failed project of Barack Obama, the report said.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have also used the office as an example of Qatar’s willingness to play host to extremist groups. The two countries, along with Bahrain and Egypt, are boycotting Doha over its links to terror groups.
A final decision to close the office would lie with the Qatari government, although Kabul could initiate the process.
Mr Trump is believed to have raised the issue of shutting the office when he met Sheikh Tamim, the emir of Qatar, last week.
Shah Hussain Murtazawai, a spokesman for the Afghan president, denied that the Taliban office had been discussed.
"Such an issue wasn't part of the agenda," he told The National.
PULITZER PRIZE 2020 WINNERS
JOURNALISM
Public Service
Anchorage Daily News in collaboration with ProPublica
Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.
Investigative Reporting
Brian M. Rosenthal of The New York Times
Explanatory Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
Local Reporting
Staff of The Baltimore Sun
National Reporting
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose and Robert Faturechi of ProPublica
and
Dominic Gates, Steve Miletich, Mike Baker and Lewis Kamb of The Seattle Times
International Reporting
Staff of The New York Times
Feature Writing
Ben Taub of The New Yorker
Commentary
Nikole Hannah-Jones of The New York Times
Criticism
Christopher Knight of the Los Angeles Times
Editorial Writing
Jeffery Gerritt of the Palestine (Tx.) Herald-Press
Editorial Cartooning
Barry Blitt, contributor, The New Yorker
Breaking News Photography
Photography Staff of Reuters
Feature Photography
Channi Anand, Mukhtar Khan and Dar Yasin of the Associated Press
Audio Reporting
Staff of This American Life with Molly O’Toole of the Los Angeles Times and Emily Green, freelancer, Vice News for “The Out Crowd”
LETTERS AND DRAMA
Fiction
"The Nickel Boys" by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
Drama
"A Strange Loop" by Michael R. Jackson
History
"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel (Oxford University Press)
Biography
"Sontag: Her Life and Work" by Benjamin Moser (Ecco/HarperCollins)
Poetry
"The Tradition" by Jericho Brown (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction
"The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care" by Anne Boyer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
and
"The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America" by Greg Grandin (Metropolitan Books)
Music
"The Central Park Five" by Anthony Davis, premiered by Long Beach Opera on June 15, 2019
Special Citation
Ida B. Wells
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Winner: Jinjal, Fabrice Veron, Ahmed Al Shemaili
8pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Al Sail, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
