Is Peace on the Horizon for Afghanistan?

Is it time for optimism in Afghanistan?

On February 28, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered the Taliban peace talks without preconditions as a way to end the nearly two-decade-long conflict in his country. A month later, as delegates from more than 20countries gathered in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, to discuss ways to restore stability to Afghanistan, there still hasn’t been a formal response from the Taliban. Officials, meanwhile, have held out hope that the absence of a reply is cause for optimism. “[W]e have not seen them reject the proposal, which … is in itself a positive sign,” Alice Wells, the U.S. State Department official who oversees South and Central Asia, said earlier this month at the U.S. Institute for Peace. “And I would