State Dept. Moves to Shut Office Planning Afghanistan Strategy
The office of the special representative for Afghanistan
and Pakistan, which once drew experts from nearly a dozen government agencies, will be folded into the State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, people briefed on the decision said on Friday.
Vali said that The Pentagon is contemplating more war in Afghanistan, while the State Department is shutting down the office
that could give it a voice in that important development,
By MARK LANDLERJUNE 23, 2017
WASHINGTON — The State Department is winding down an Obama-era office responsible for developing long-range strategy in Afghanistan
and Pakistan — just as the Trump administration conducts a major review of the future of America’s longest war.
that elevated the importance of the diplomatic and political equities to b
President Barack Obama created the office in January 2009 when he named Richard C. Holbrooke, a celebrated diplomat who
brokered the Dayton peace accords to end the Bosnian war, as the first special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In a statement, the State Department said Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson had not made a final decision about the future of the office.
