Taliban agree to remove Afghanistan from Doha office name

THE Taliban office in Doha will be renamed to remove any reference to the state of Afghanistan, the US has informed an angry Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

THE Taliban office in Doha will be renamed to remove any reference to the state of Afghanistan, the US has informed an angry Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

US Secretary of State John Kerry had "assured that the Qatari government has removed the name Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the Taliban office,'' an Afghan official said on condition of anonymity.

"It will be called the Bureau of Peace Talks.''

Security guards stand outside the new Taliban political office in Doha. (Photo AFP)

Karzai and Kerry spoke twice by telephone after the Afghan government became enraged that the Taliban office in Qatar was opened in a blaze of publicity and US officials were apparently about to arrive for talks.

"The manner in which the office was established, and the name of the Taliban office, is unacceptable to us,'' an official told DPA.

US deny talks agreed with Taliban

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was the name used during Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.

The agreed purpose of the office was to hold talks between Afghanistan's High Peace Council and representatives of the Taliban, he said.

"There was to be no reference to the office, or treatment of it as, an embassy, or office representing the Taliban as an independent government, or an emirate.

"We have also been assured that the Taliban flag would be removed in the Doha office,'' the official said.

Taliban defy peace bid with deadly attack

Karzai told Kerry that Afghan public opinion was "extremely negative'' to the way in which the Taliban office had been unveiled in an event that many experts described as an international publicity coup for the rebels.

"The opening of this office has made the Taliban look strong, the Americans desperate and President Karzai angry,'' the Afghanistan Analysts Network said in a briefing note.

Afghanistan 1400, a civil youth group, said the office should be used to hold Taliban leaders to account for their crimes.

"It only reminds Afghans of the horror and oppression of the Taliban regime, and their brutality under the same banner in recent years,'' it said.

With the US-led NATO combat mission due to end next year, US officials are determined to resume talks with the Taliban after tentative contacts limited to a prisoner swap collapsed last year.

But Karzai, the only leader of Afghanistan since the Taliban were toppled in the 2001 US-led invasion, opposes bilateral US-Taliban talks.

Yesterday, he broke off ongoing Afghan-US talks on an agreement that would allow Washington to maintain soldiers in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends.

The US State Department dismissed earlier reports which said the United States had scheduled talks with the Taliban for this week.

``Reports of a meeting being scheduled or on the books aren't accurate,'' spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, saying Washington had ``never confirmed'' the date and place of any specific meeting.

``We are now in consultations with the Afghan leadership and the High Peace Council on how to move forward,'' she said.

The High Peace Council is the government body in charge of leading peace efforts with the Taliban.

US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, 23, has been held captive by the Taliban since 2009. (AP Photo)

To heighten tension, the Taliban today said it was ready to release US Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, held captive since 2009, in exchange for five of their senior operatives held at Guantánamo Bay prison.

A Taliban spokesman, Shaheen Suhail, said Bergdahl "is as far as I know in good condition''.

Shaheen said "first has to be the release of detainees," and after that, the Taliban "want to build bridges of confidence''.

He offered no details on Bergdahl's whereabouts.

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