American diplomats are working to secure a close-by spot in Central Asia to respond to any resurgence of outside militants in Afghanistan after the U.S. military withdraws.
But there’s distrust of the U.S. as a reliable long-term partner, after an only partly successful war in Afghanistan and after years of widely fluctuating U.S. engagement regionally and globally, former American diplomats say.
Meanwhile, the Taliban leadership, more internationally savvy than it had been in 2001, has been visiting regional capitals and Moscow this summer in a diplomatic push of its own.
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