Washington signed a historic agreement with the Taliban in Doha on Saturday to withdraw American soldiers from Afghanistan, after 18 years of the outbreak of the longest wars in the history of the United States.
US President Donald Trump warned after the signing that "if things go wrong, we will back down" from the agreement.
He told a press conference in Washington that he would "meet" Taliban leaders soon.
Afghans hope that the agreement negotiated for more than a year will end four decades of armed conflict and open the door for dialogue between the Kabul government and the extremist movement with the goal of ending the suffering in the poor country.
The agreement was signed by US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad, head of the movement´s political bureau and deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Brader, in the presence of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and representatives from dozens of countries.
The two sides shook hands in a hall in a luxury hotel in the Qatari capital, amid shouts of "God is great" among the Taliban representatives present.
The signed agreement is not a peace agreement as it does not include the official Afghans, which are beset by disputes, but it paves the way for the withdrawal of all American soldiers from this country.
The American forces will immediately start the gradual withdrawal, with the number of soldiers reduced from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days, according to the agreement. The United States and its allies will withdraw all forces within 14 months.
But the implementation of this depends on the extent to which the Taliban implement the terms of the agreement and the progress made in internal political negotiations.
"If the political solution fails and negotiations fail, nothing will force the United States to withdraw its soldiers," a US official told AFP.
Insurgents committed, according to the text of the agreement, "not to allow any of their elements or any other individuals or groups, including al Qaeda, to use Afghan soil to threaten the security of the United States and its allies."
To coincide with the withdrawal process, unprecedented direct peace negotiations between the movement and the Kabul authorities are expected to begin by March 10, to complete the agreement signed in Doha, according to US officials.
"The agreement stipulates the date of March 10, but we have to be realistic," an official told AFP, while another official suggested that negotiations start in the first half of March and be held in Oslo.
According to the officials, the main challenge lies in the difficulty of forming a unified delegation that brings together the Afghan government, the opposition and civil society in light of the existing disputes over the results of the recent presidential elections.
Washington and the Taliban agreed to exchange thousands of prisoners as part of "confidence-building measures" before the start of Afghan negotiations.
In front of representatives of the Taliban, the US Secretary of State urged the movement to abide by its "promises to cut ties" with Al Qaeda and continue to fight the Islamic State, saying that the agreement is "the best opportunity for peace in a whole generation."
Pompeo said: "Keep your promises to cut ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and continue to fight the Islamic State until victory over it."
The Taliban´s reception of al-Qaeda on Afghan soil was the main reason for the US invasion in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
An international coalition led by the United States expelled the movement from power after the attacks, and the rebels who had ruled Kabul from 1996 to October 2001 carried out continuous attacks that killed more than 2,400 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Afghan security forces.
Washington has spent more than a billion dollars in the war that has killed and injured more than 100,000 Afghan civilians since 2009, according to United Nations figures.
On the eve of the signing, the US President urged the Afghan people to seize the opportunity, saying that "if the Taliban and the Afghan government are at the level of obligations, we will go forward to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our soldiers home."
The agreement, which paves the way for the United States to emerge from the longest war in its history, embodies an important diplomatic turn, as it signals the decline in the momentum of American interventions around the world.
The "war on terror" announced by Washington in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, has not faced widespread objections in a country that will continue to be traumatized by the shock of the collapse of the New York Towers.
But over time, the accumulation of casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the allocation of billions for military expenditures, led to a decline in convictions in particular. Donald Trump arrived at the White House after pledging to withdraw from "endless wars."
The Taliban emerged among the ranks of Quranic school students in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan in late 1994 during the civil war in Afghanistan.
With support from Pakistan, the movement quickly spread among the population exhausted by the long and bloody years of bloody war looking for stability and seized power in Kabul in 1996.
The movement banned television, music and cinema, and prohibited girls from going to school and imposed on women to wear veils and men to beards. Violators were beaten and stolen by hand-cutting in public squares, where executions are carried out.
"This is a historic moment for our nation. It is the very day when our ancestors celebrated the defeat of the British and the Soviets," said movement chief negotiator Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai in a video recording.
In Doha, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told France Presse, "We are fully committed (to the agreement), and that is why we signed," while stressing that "women´s rights from education to work are reserved as long as they continue to wear the veil."
A US official said that the agreement is "a crucial and historic first step to push them to openly disengage from Al Qaeda."
The agreement was signed in Doha a week after an unprecedented partial truce that the Americans considered a successful test after they generally held.
Robert Malley, head of the International Crisis Group Institute, said the agreement "is not perfect (...) but it is the best hope for ending the war."
