WASHINGTON: Zalmay Khalilzad, who negotiated the United States (US) withdrawal agreement with the Taliban under Donald Trump’s tenure, has resigned as special envoy to Afghanistan, following the chaotic American withdrawal from the country.
Zalmay Khalilzad will leave the post this week after more than three years on the job under both the Trump and Biden administrations. He had been criticised for not pressing the Taliban hard enough in peace talks begun while Trump was president.
However, US Secretary of State Blinken thanked him for his work and said, “I extend my gratitude for his decades of service to the American people”. Blinken further said that Tom West, Khalilzad’s deputy, would take over as the administration’s special representative.
Thank you to Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad for decades of tireless service to the United States. Pleased to welcome Thomas West to the role of Special Representative for Afghanistan. @US4AfghanPeace
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 18, 2021
The Biden administration, which kept Khalilzad in his job for another nine months, was expected to announce the resignation later Monday. “I decided that now is the right time,” Khalilzad said in a resignation letter to Antony Blinken, “at a juncture when we are entering a new phase in our Afghanistan policy.”
Khalilzad said in his resignation letter that after leaving government service he would continue to work on behalf of the Afghan people and would offer his thoughts and advice on what went wrong in Afghanistan and the path forward.
Khalilzad had initially planned to leave the job in May after Biden’s announcement that the US withdrawal would be completed before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in September. However, he was asked to stay on and did so.
An Afghan native, Khalilzad was unsuccessful in getting the two sides together to forge a power-sharing deal but he did negotiate a US agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 that ultimately led to the end of America’s longest-running war.
The agreement with the Taliban served as the template for the Biden administration’s withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan, which many believe was conducted too hastily and without enough planning.
President Joe Biden and his aides frequently said the agreement that Khalilzad negotiated tied their hands when it came to the pullout and led to the sudden takeover of the country by the Taliban, although administration critics noted that Biden had abandoned the “conditions-based” requirements for a complete US withdrawal.
Despite the criticism, Khalilzad remained on the job, although he skipped the first high-level post-withdrawal US-Taliban meeting in Doha, Qatar earlier this month, prompting speculation he was on his way out.
