The Taliban senses an opening as it pushes for diplomatic recognition in talks with Trump administration

By Alex Marquardt, CNN

(CNN) — In the two months since Donald Trump became president, the Taliban has ratcheted up its efforts to ingratiate itself with the Trump administration, appearing to sense an opening to re-establish official ties and a presence in the US, according to people familiar with the American conversations with the group, which is still designated as a terrorist organization by Washington.

“There’s a path that’s positive and if they walk that path, we walk that path,” said an American official who described the early conversations as “exploratory” and fluid.

“I wouldn’t rule out negative things too,” the official said, emphasizing that normalization of ties wouldn’t be expected to happen in the near-term.

In talks last month with American officials in Kabul, to secure the release of an American prisoner, Taliban officials again raised the prospect of the US recognizing the group as Afghanistan’s official government.

The Taliban also put forward a request to open an office in the US to handle issues with the Afghan community, the official and a second person familiar with the discussions said. The office wouldn’t necessarily be an embassy and the location could be somewhere outside Washington, the Taliban officials proposed.

Establishing formal diplomatic ties with the Taliban would mark a profound shift in US-Afghan relations following the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan after the US withdrew its forces from the country in 2021. That came after nearly two decades of fighting which claimed the lives of almost 2,500 American troops.

It was in the last year of Trump’s first term that he reached an agreement with the Taliban which stipulated the full withdrawal of US troops in 2021, meaning it would take place under President Joe Biden. As the Afghan security forces collapsed and allowed the Taliban to sweep to power that summer, the Biden administration executed the chaotic withdrawal with dramatic scenes of desperate Afghans chasing evacuation planes at Kabul’s airport. Almost 200 Afghans and 13 American servicemembers were killed by an ISIS-K suicide bomber at an airport gate.

After last month’s meeting over the release of American airline mechanic George Glezmann, both the Taliban and Trump’s former envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, who flew to Kabul to get him, said that the move was a “goodwill gesture.”

The release had been brokered by Qatar, where Taliban officials have been hosted for years. After Glezmann, the Taliban released American Faye Hall less than two weeks later, again without receiving anyone in exchange.

In January, the group delayed the release of two other Americans until after Trump took office, to allow him to take credit instead of Joe Biden. In that case, a Taliban member convicted of narco-terrorism in the US was handed back.

“They realize this is a step-by-step normalization,” the second person familiar said. The group is “eager to please Trump” and understood they needed to offer something to the transactional American president.

The moves are not just from the Taliban side.

After Glezmann’s release, the US removed millions of dollars of bounties on three members of the Haqqani network, which for years carried out deadly attacks on American forces and is still designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US. One of them, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is the Taliban’s interior minister.

The three kept their US designations as terrorists but bounties across the board are being reviewed, the US official said.

“If all Americans are not released, the leaders will face VERY big bounties, maybe even bigger than [Osama] Bin Laden,” another US official said following Glezmann’s release, echoing a similar earlier warning by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The March meeting in Kabul was led on the American side by Adam Boehler, whom Trump has charged with freeing detained Americans around the world. He sat next to Khalilzad, who has had no official role, but led the negotiations with the Taliban during Trump’s first term over the US pulling out of Afghanistan.

Before Trump took office, the Taliban was asking for not just normalized ties but the release of prisoners being held by the US at Guantanamo Bay. They also wanted billions of dollars unfrozen, said a former US official who engaged with the Taliban.

“I told them that unconditional releases [equals] great relations with Trump. Clear out your holding cells – Trump will be free to work with you,” the former official said while saying they also warned: “Hold Americans: expect cruise missiles.”

The Taliban admires Trump, the former official continued, and the apparent strength he projects.

Trump has also been flattering about the group’s fighters in the past, calling them “good fighters” and “really smart” in a Fox News interview during Biden’s presidency.

During his own first term, Trump secretly invited the Taliban to Camp David for talks around pulling US troops out of Afghanistan and a peace deal with the Afghan government, right before the anniversary of September 11th.

The decision divided his team and Trump scrapped the plans, claiming he canceled the talks after a Taliban attack killed an American soldier.

Once it became public there was a huge outcry, including from then-Congressman Mike Waltz who now serves as Trump’s national security advisor.

Despite having agreed to the US withdrawal himself in early 2020, Trump has repeatedly attacked Biden over the catastrophic way in which it played out and made it a major issue in last year’s election campaign.

Last week Trump again raised the possibility of demanding the Taliban return US military equipment, accusing Biden of abandoning billions of dollars’ worth of hardware. The Taliban has so far refused.

The Taliban was not mentioned in the annual report just published by the intelligence community on global threat to the United States. But a mutual enemy was: ISIS-Khorasan, which the report called the “most capable” ISIS branch.

Under the terms of the agreement struck in 2020, the Taliban was supposed to prevent another terror group, al Qaeda, from regrouping. But ties remained and in 2022 the Biden administration targeted and killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri with a missile from a drone on his home in Kabul.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan, but the group is making progress on the diplomatic stage.

The Taliban now has ambassadors in both China and the United Arab Emirates as well as a long-held political office in Doha. The regime has also settled into diplomatic posts around the world and sent out diplomats to staff them.

In Washington, the embassy of Afghanistan remains closed but its re-opening under the Taliban government would no doubt be a crowning achievement.

“You need to be forthcoming and take a risk,” the Taliban was told in the March meeting in Kabul, according to the person familiar with it. “Do this, it will likely open up the door for better relationship.”

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