by Munir Ahmed and Kathy Gannon
The Taliban announced Wednesday they are sending a high-level delegation to Pakistan’s capital as part of a tour that has included Russia, China and Iran in a push to resurrect an Afghanistan peace deal with Washington that seemed imminent just a month ago.
Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a co-founder of the Taliban and head of their political office in Qatar, will lead the 11-member delegation during talks with Pakistani officials in Islamabad.
Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s special peace envoy, is also in the Pakistani capital for “consultations” with the Pakistani leadership, a U.S. official said. He spent the last year negotiating a peace deal with the Taliban, which seemed imminent until Sept. 7 when U.S. President Donald Trump declared the deal “dead.”
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Khalilzad is not in Islamabad to resume the peace process…
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