US Secretary of State John Kerry has reportedly said that Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour posed a "continuing imminent threat" to US personnel in Afghanistan and to Afghans, and was a threat to peace. After his remarks, interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has proved without any iota of doubt that the late Taliban leader was not against peace talks. In other words, he was quite amenable to persuasion.
Insofar as Kerry's other remark that he was a threat to Nato and US troops in Afghanistan is concerned, the West and the rest of the world must not lose sight of the fact that Afghan Taliban belong to Afghanistan and that they have a legitimate battle to wage to seek the exit of foreign troops from their homeland.
That the US drone strike has worsened the situation is a fact that has found its best expression in Mulla Mansour's successor Haibatullah Akhundzada's policy statement that the Taliban, who have been stabbed in the back by the US, are not interested in talks. Did the US want this? Or, the drone strike was actually aimed at Pakistan?
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