The Taliban accuse US that they have violated the Doha Accord by keeping the Afghan interim government’s two members under black list and claiming that they have dark track record. The group claimed that by keeping its interior minister Sirrajudin Haqqani on the US terror list. the US is breaching the Doha Accord signed in 2020 in Qatar and creating impediments for Taliban to streamline work and policy making through the new cabinet. However, the analyst deem that both US and the Taliban are manipulating the Doha accord for their vested interests.
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Key cabinet members on US blacklists; violation of Doha Accord
“The Islamic Emirate considers this a clear violation of the Doha Agreement which is neither in the interest of the United States or Afghanistan,” the statement said, referring to the agreement signed in the Qatari capital.
The new minister, who is part of the Haqqani Network, had been accused of attacks on US forces in Afghanistan during the 20 years of war. The US has a $5m bounty for Haqqani. He also remains on a United Nations terror list.
Several other members of the group, including the acting Prime Minister Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund, are blacklisted internationally.
“Pentagon officials have remarked that some cabinet members of the Islamic Emirate or family members of the late Haqqani Sahib are on the US blacklists and still targets,” said a statement from the ministry of foreign affairs late on Wednesday.
Read more: New Afghan government members having dark record, US concerns
Key points of US-Taliban Doha Accord
The deal paved the way for the withdrawal of US-led foreign forces in return for a guarantee from the Taliban not to allow groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL to operate on Afghan soil. The US forces withdrew just before an August 31 deadline in what turned out to be a chaotic exercise, ending America’s longest war.
The US-Taliban deal excluded the West-backed Afghan government led by former President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country after Taliban fighters swept through the country last month with little resistance from government forces.
Also, the US had in the wake of the deal pledged to remove Taliban members from international sanctions. But the fact that key members of the new Afghan government cabinet are still blacklisted has caused resentment among the Taliban that US cannot be trusted to keep its words.
Read more: US-Taliban Peace Accord: Complexities of Peace Building in Afghanistan
Haqqani family members see US action untrustworthy
Al-Jazeera points out that Pentagon officials are commenting to the media that members of the Haqqani family are still legitimate targets and remain on US blacklists.
“The Taliban are saying this is very provocative, condemning it, saying that members of the Haqqani family must be removed from the US sanctions lists immediately. They say they will continue to demand that,” said Charlotte Bellis, the Al Jazeera correspondent reporting from Kabul.
“A number of Haqqani family are part of the government and they are very disappointed. They say they wanted positive relations with the US. And they are very disappointed to see some of their highest leaders remaining as legitimate targets.”
“It will be very interesting to see what the US response to this statement will be,” she added.
New Afghan cabinet: Old wine in new bottle?
Ahead of the Taliban’s announcement of its new cabinet this week, another member of the network and leading Taliban figure, Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani, was put in charge of security for Kabul.
Many Afghans are skeptical that a leader of the Haqqani Network, known to be the most brutal and violent group associated with the Taliban, could bring security to Afghanistan after years of war and violence – especially as reports of house-to-house searches and violence allegedly committed by the Taliban continue to pour in, including in Kabul.
The Taliban has denied that they are carrying out reprisals and said its members are disciplined.
Fahim Sadat, head of the International Relations department at Kabul-based Kardan University, said both the US and the Taliban were invoking the Doha Agreement to serve their separate interests.
“The reality is that the sanctions list is one of the only viable leverages of the international community which can be used against the Taliban for any concession,” Sadat told Al Jazeera from the Spanish city of Barcelona.