Amid flurry of Taliban diplomacy, Qatar stresses engagement

Qatar’s foreign minister says isolating Afghanistan and its new Taliban rulers “will never be an answer.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Qatar's foreign minister said isolating Afghanistan and its new Taliban rulers “will never be an answer” and argued Wednesday that engaging with the former insurgents could empower the more moderate voices among them.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani spoke amid a flurry of diplomatic meetings taking place in Qatar, where the Taliban have maintained a political office for years in the lead-up to their takeover of Afghanistan in August.

The world has been looking to see how the Taliban transition from two decades of insurgency and war to governance after they seized control of Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country.

This week, the United States, 10 European nations and European Union representatives held face-to-face talks with Taliban leaders in Doha, the Qatari capital — the first such meetings since the Taliban blitz.