Negotiations with the Taliban were said to take place in Qatar where the Taliban opened a office for this purpose. As a confidence building measure before starting real negotiations a prisoner exchange was agreed upon between the U.S. and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Five Taliban imprisoned in Guantanamo were to be exchanged for one American held in Taliban custody. But that move is opposed by the majority and minority leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee and is therefore unlikely to happen.
But even with the agreed upon confidence building measure not yet fulfilled the U.S. tried to press the Taliban on some other points. The conditions the U.S. tried to set so far, an integration of the Taliban into the exiting political framework of the Karzai government and the current Afghan constitution, are unexceptable to the Taliban.
At the same time and after several deadly recent incidents in Afghanistan the sentiment in the political establishment in the U.S. as well as in the UK has turned decidedly towards an exit from Afghanistan. Within Afghanistan the foreign troops are more and more seen as a burden and today Karzai called for a retreat of all foreign troops from all villages on outposts back into the main bases. He also calls for a faster handover of all security tasks to native Afghan forces.
The war on Afghanistan now seems to come to a faster than expected end.
The Taliban have drawn the right conclusion, they will outlast their enemy, and announced that they will no longer negotiate with the U.S.:
A memorandum of understanding which was agreed upon earlier was not yet fulfilled when an American representative presented a list of conditions in his latest meeting with the Islamic Emirate which were not only unacceptable but also in contradiction with the earlier agreed upon points. So it was due to their alternating and ever changing position that the Islamic Emirate was compelled to suspend all dialogue with the Americans. We must categorically state that the real source of obstacle in talks was the shaky, erratic and vague standpoint of the Americans therefore all the responsibility for the halt also falls on their shoulders.
As the rush to the exits begins the only good news is that Pakistan seems to be willing to reopen its roads for passage of goods to, and more important now, from Afghanistan. That will allow for a faster and less complicated retreat.