ISLAMABAD - The United States and the Taliban took a one-day break Friday from a marathon 11 days of talks in Qatar aimed at finalising a deal for ending Afghanistan’s 18-year war. A top US military official, however, spoke of “some obstacles” that negotiators were trying to overcome, reported Voice of America (VOA).

The latest discussions, taking place in Doha began February 25. In a formal announcement about the pause in negotiations, a Taliban statement said the dialogue would resume Saturday.

US and insurgent officials have said recently that the talks “are proceeding in a positive direction,” but they issued conflicting statements about the agenda.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that their representatives in the “comprehensive discussions” with US negotiators have focused only on the withdrawal of “all [foreign] occupying forces” from Afghanistan in return for the Taliban’s pledges to prevent the country from being used as a hub for terrorism.

At a news conference in Washington this week, a State Department spokesman, Robert Palladino, suggested the Doha meetings also have involved a possible Taliban ceasefire and the group’s engagement in intra-Afghan talks.

The insurgents refuse to talk with the government in Kabul until they flesh out details with the US on troop withdrawal and counterterrorism issues. The Taliban also are reluctant to discuss a ceasefire at this stage of talks, fearing that doing so could spark internal rifts and undermine insurgents’ battlefield activities.

“As some individuals and circles are trying to connect other topics to these discussions, they are either unaware or are pursuing an agenda. No one should pay any heed to the rumors of these self-interested circles,” Mujahid said in his statement, although he did not directly refer to the remarks by the State Department spokesman.

On Thursday, a top US army general cautioned during a House Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington that the current status of negotiations with the Taliban doesn’t merit a US troop withdrawal because Afghan security forces remain dependent on coalition support to fight insurgents.

“We are very early in the process of this [dialogue]. There have been no agreements from either side. We have not given anything up, and they [the Taliban] have not given anything up,” noted Gen Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command.

When a congresswoman asked Votel whether the Taliban have said during talks that they would abide by the Afghan constitution, renounce violence and abandon their alliance with Al-Qaeda, the general replied “Well, they haven’t made any of those statements.”

Votel said the discussions that Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, has been having with the Taliban are “really focused on developing a framework that can lead to inter-Afghan discussions, and this involves overcoming some obstacles that right now are preventing the Taliban from talking to the government of Afghanistan.”

He did not elaborate and said such issues as the rights of Afghan women and their participation in peace negotiations would be addressed when intra-Afghan talks commence following a US deal with the Taliban.

During the hearing, lawmakers noted that in their recent interactions with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, he made it clear to them he didn’t respect the validity of the talks because his democratically elected government had been excluded.

“It is my observation from my close discussions with [Khalilzad] that he is in fact consulting with President Ghani on a regular basis and keeping him well-informed and the actual initiation of these discussions was done with President Ghani’s knowledge and support,” Votel replied.

Disagreements about the definition of terrorism and its variants hindered progress this week in the ongoing peace negotiations between US President Donald Trump’s administration and Afghan Taliban.

The New York Times (NYT) reported: One of the most prominent issues thwarting [the peace-seeking] progress is a disagreement over a fundamental question: What is terrorism, and who is a terrorist?

The answer is so important because the two sides had already agreed in principle on a framework for two crucial issues: the withdrawal of American troops, and a commitment that Afghan soil would not again be used to launch terrorist attacks against the United States and its allies, as Al-Qaeda did with its strikes on Sept 11, 2001.

On Friday, Al Jazeera noted “The United States and the Taliban negotiators announced a two-day break from talks in Qatar following extensive discussion for 11 days in a renewed bid to restore peace to Afghanistan.”