US Defense Secretary says Afghan reconciliation picking up traction

WASHIGNTON, Sept 7 (APP):US Defense Secretary James Mattis on Thursday observed that the Afghan reconciliation was no more an illusion and said there was a way forward for the Taliban to reconcile in an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned reconciliation process.
Speaking to reporters on his way to India for an official visit, Mattis said although there has still hard fighting going on, but “right now, we have more indications that reconciliation is no longer just a shimmer out there, no longer just a mirage”.
“It (reconciliation) has some framework, there’s some open lines of communication,” he said when asked about the impact of the new South Asia strategy that the administration of President Trump introduced in August last year to end nearly 17 years of war in Afghanistan.
Asked if the US need Taliban to defeat ISIS in Afghanistan, he replied: “I think what we need the Taliban to do is to recognize that if they live by the Afghan constitution, they can still get their say.
“If they’ll stop using bombs and if they’ll break with al Qaeda and ISIS, which clearly is going on, you see this move toward a potential reconciliation with Taliban,” Gen Mattis said.
He said that some people had set aside as wishful thinking the assessment by the Trump administration that there would be level of combat between ISIS and the Taliban as they were ideological differences.
“What we see now is some pretty hard fighting going on between those groups in certain locations,” he said but added that ISIS was isolated in certain provinces where Taliban did have reach.
He said that the US still believed that there was a way forward for Taliban to reconcile in an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned reconciliation process. “We do expect that we and the international community will support the Afghan government in this, in all ways. And that neighboring countries will.”
“But ISIS, we do not see that being a reconciliation issue. And as strange as it might sound, here we both view – both the Taliban and the NATO alliance supporting the Afghan government – view ISIS in the same light,” he added.
He said the reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghan government would itself help defeat the ISIS, adding that the political accommodation would turn into a security reality that would be much harder on ISIS.
He said that there were a lot more indications that reconciliation now reinforced by the US State Department was now pick up traction.