A Taliban official and another individual close to the group confirmed the talks, which are aimed at renewing the Afghan peace process The Taliban control nearly half of Afghanistan and carry out near-daily attacks on local security forces and government officials KABUL: The US special envoy to Afghanistan hopes to cement a peace deal with Taliban insurgents by April 2019. Zalmay Khalilzad, in Kabul to lead talks between the United States, the Taliban and the Afghan government, told reporters he hopes “a peace deal is reached before April 20 next year,” when Afghanistan is planning to hold a presidential election. The Afghan-born US diplomat said he remained “cautiously optimistic” about the peace talks. Khalilzad, chosen by US President Donald Trump’s administration to hold direct talks with the Taliban, met the leaders of the hard-line Islamist group in Qatar last month to find ways to end the 17-year war in Afghanistan. On Sunday Khalilzad said the end state of the talks would be “peace and a successful Afghanistan, one that doesn’t pose any threats to itself and to the international community.” The Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment but two senior Taliban leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Taliban leaders will present a new set of demands to Khalilzad. The insurgents, fighting to expel foreign forces and defeat the Western-backed Afghan government, last month presented demands to Khalilzad that included a timeline for the withdrawal of US troops and the release of senior Taliban from jails. In October, Pakistan released one of the co-founders of the Taliban and another high-ranking commander. No date has been announced for another round of talks but Khalilzad said the Taliban “might bring additional changes to their team of negotiators.” Khalilzad is trying to cobble together a negotiating team comprising influential Afghans to reassure the US-backed government in Kabul that it will not be shut out of a peace process. While the Trump administration and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government are making efforts to reach a settlement with the Taliban, the insurgents have continued their attacks on government forces, inflicting hundreds of casualties over recent weeks in assaults across Afghanistan. On Saturday, US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford said: “We used the term stalemate a year ago and relatively speaking it hasn’t changed much, but ... we do believe that the Taliban know that at some point they have to reconcile.” The Taliban have held three days of talks with US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in the Gulf state of Qatar. A Taliban official and another individual close to the group confirmed the talks, which are aimed at renewing the Afghan peace process and eventually winding down America’s longest war. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the negotiations. They said Sunday that Khairullah Khairkhwa, the former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mohammed Fazl, a former Taliban military chief, attended the marathon talks. Both were former inmates at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay. The Taliban control nearly half of Afghanistan and carry out near-daily attacks on local security forces and government officials. (With AP)