ISLAMABAD - The U.S. ambassador to war-torn Afghanistan ended his two-year tenure Monday, saying his “earnest hope” is for leaders and citizens across the country to work together to find a political settlement with the Taliban insurgency.
Ambassador John Bass, who served in Kabul since December 2017, leaves his post at a time when Washington is trying to seal a peace deal with the Taliban to end the 18-year-old Afghan war, America’s longest.
“He skillfully advanced the Trump administration’s goal of reaching a political settlement in Afghanistan that ensures terrorists can never again threaten the United States from Afghan soil while leading a large diplomatic mission in the face of numerous security threats,” said a State Department official.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bass’s departure had long been planned because U.S. ambassadors typically serve in the Afghan capital, Kabul, for two years.
The peace deal Washington is negotiating with the Taliban would bind the insurgents to disallow terrorism against other countries from Afghan soil and enter into intra-Afghan negotiations to permanently end years of hostilities in the country.
In return, U.S. and NATO troops would commit to a phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, meeting the core Taliban demand.
"We will cherish our memories of the Eid holiday in 2018 when peace fell over the whole country and Afghans saw it was possible for both sides to stop the violence,” Bass tweeted Monday. He was referring to a three-day cease-fire announced by the Taliban days after the Afghan government ceased its counterinsurgency operations. Eid marks the end of the Muslim fasting period known as Ramadan.
Afghan National Army soldiers attend their graduation ceremony after a three-month training program at the Afghan Military Academy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2020.
The battlefield hostilities have since killed thousands of Afghan security forces and civilians. The United Nations said recently the conflict has killed or injured more than 100,000 civilians in the last 10 years alone. The Taliban has ignored repeated U.S. calls for a reduction in violence in order to further the fledgling peace process.
Bass had been a vocal critic of rampant corruption in Afghan institutions and lately had been stressing the need to ensure a credible and transparent outcome of the Sept. 28 Afghan presidential election.
In his farewell interview to a local broadcaster last week, the ambassador called for Afghans to set aside political differences to form an inclusive government.
"I think that’s a reflection of the fairly low level of turnout for the presidential election and the fact that if someone emerges from this first round as the winner, they are going to have fewer than a million votes in a country of over 30 million people in which over 9 million people are registered to vote,” the ambassador told Afghanistan's TOLO TV.
The remarks angered the government of incumbent Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who has secured the majority of the votes in preliminary results and is on the way to winning a second five-year term.
Afghanistan’s election commission announced preliminary results for the Sept. 28 polls late last month, citing technical issues and fraud-related allegations.
Ghani’s governing partner and main challenger, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, swiftly rejected the results. An electoral commission is currently auditing thousands of complaints Abdullah’s camping has submitted that could impact the final outcome.