Ahead of the talks, a small group of women staged a protest in Kabul on Saturday to oppose any international recognition of the Taliban government. "Any kind of recognition of the Taliban is completely off the table," said U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel. The Afghan foreign ministry rejected the call and said the ban "is an internal social matter of Afghanistan". Richard Gowan, U.N. expert for the International Crisis Group, an independent NGO, said the U.N. is "in a trap over Afghanistan". U.S. Afghanistan envoy Thomas West has been traveling across West Asia in recent weeks meeting different governments and groups.
