The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad congratulated Afghan political and civil society leaders on Friday on forming a negotiating team for talks with Taliban. “This consensus is a meaningful step that moves the parties significantly closer to intra-Afghan negotiations,” he said on Twitter. Late on Thursday, Afghanistan’s government announced a 21-member team to negotiate with the Taliban, in a tentative sign of progress for the United States-brokered peace deal that had previously been marred with delays, in part due to a bitter feud between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political rival Abdullah Abdullah.
