The US special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said on Saturday that his country and the Taliban will hold a new round of talks next week, hoping to make progress towards ending the longest war in US history.
Khalilzad said the seventh round of talks would be held on June 29.
"Based on my recent visits to Afghanistan and Qatar, I think all parties want to make rapid progress," the US special envoy wrote on Twitter.
The State Department said negotiations with the Taliban would have been held in Qatar as usual.
The State Department announced in early June that Khalilzad will hold new talks in Qatar with representatives of the Taliban.
Khalilzad hopes to reach an agreement that allows the United States to withdraw its forces that invaded Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks, in return for ensuring the Taliban did not use Afghan territory as a base for militant Islamist attacks such as al Qaeda, the main cause of the US invasion nearly two decades ago.
The Taliban have rejected US calls to end the violence to create an atmosphere conducive to the talks and insist on continuing its urgency.
"The resistance against the occupation is approaching the stage of success," said the new Taliban leader Mullah Hiba Allah Akhundzadeh in a message on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
The Taliban´s refusal to negotiate with the internationally recognized Afghan government is one of the main sticking points. A UN official has recently confirmed that Germany and Qatar are making efforts to hold an Afghan-Afghan meeting.
Trump expressed his impatience with the war, arguing that there was no justification for carrying more human and material losses.
