Marathon talks held in Doha last month have stoked hopes of a breakthrough after the two sides walked away with a “draft framework” that included a Taliban commitment to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for international terror groups.

It was the most substantial engagement by Washington with the militants since US forces ousted them from power in 2001. But there is still no accord on a timetable for a US withdrawal or a ceasefire — both major issues on which previous efforts have foundered.

This time Washington’s special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has spearheaded the months-long effort, is expected to face an expanded Taliban negotiating team headed by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s former deputy minister of foreign affairs.

Neither side has stated how long they expect the meetings to last or the details of what will be discussed.

Analysts say this round will likely see the Taliban push for the removal of its leaders from a UN travel blacklist, matched with pressure from the US for the militants to open a dialogue with the Afghan government.

“Both sides are going into this process with open minds and a sense of urgency as the weather gets warmer and fighting season draws closer,” Graeme Smith, a consultant based with International Crisis Group, told AFP.

The Taliban have steadfastly refused to negotiate with Kabul, whom they dismiss as “puppets”. They have also stated that, without a withdrawal timetable, further progress is “impossible”.

US President Donald Trump’s apparent eagerness to end America’s longest war, the Afghan government’s fear of being sidelined, and the coming of spring all weigh on the process.

“Eyes are on the Taliban to see if they are capable of compromising,” said analyst Michael Semple.

“Can they come up with a sufficient compromise to agree to a formula for an intra-Afghan dialogue that absolutely involves the current Afghan government?”

Khalilzad, he added, “has stirred up the peace process in a way that nobody over the previous two decades had”.

– Pakistan’s influence waning? –

The gathering momentum has spurred fresh peace demonstrations and cautious hope in Afghanistan.

But there is also growing unease, with fears the government is being pushed aside and that progress which many Afghans have paid for with their lives could yet be undone if the US rushes for the exits.

Women’s groups and civil society organisations have warned that a speedy withdrawal or lenient deal with the Taliban could pave the way for a return of their repressive rule, or an even bloodier civil war.

Many watched in astonishment earlier this month as Taliban militants shared meals and prayers with Afghan political leaders, including presidential contender Mohammad Atta Noor and former president Hamid Karzai, in Moscow.

But not one representative from the current administration of President Ashraf Ghani was present at the informal talks, deepening the sense of anxiety.

Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are also playing a role in the talks, as Russia and China watch closely, and many observers fear regional disputes could yet derail the process.

Pakistan, which has long wielded influence over the militants and been seen as key to any peace push, has already suggested that soaring tensions with its nuclear arch-rival India could disrupt the talks.

But Taliban expert Rahimullah Yusufzai said this time around Pakistan’s stance may be more chest-thumping bravado than an actual threat.

He said that with the US and the Taliban talking to each other directly, “I think Pakistan’s role will not be that important now.”

– ‘Challenging’ climate –

The talks have been buttressed by heavy snowfall across Afghanistan, sharply reducing fighting and providing much-needed space for negotiations.

But Yusufzai warned that another bloody fighting season will likely kick off once the snow melts, as the Taliban seeks to maintain its momentum on the battlefield to maximise pressure at the negotiating table.

“I think they have to keep up the momentum until a ceasefire,” he said.

Others warned that more bloodshed might undercut the fragile gains the talks have achieved so far.

“It will be more challenging to pursue peace in the months that come if the Taliban… resort to a large-scale spring offensive,” said Semple.

Princess Rima bint Bandar replaced Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of the powerful crown prince who was appointed vice defence minister in a flurry of late-night royal decrees announced on state media.

The reshuffle comes as Saudi Arabia seeks to quell an international outcry over Khashoggi’s murder last October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which strained relations with its key ally Washington.

After initially denying they knew anything of Khashoggi’s disappearance, the kingdom finally acknowledged that Saudi agents killed him inside the consulate, but described it as a rogue operation.

Princess Rima faces hostile US lawmakers who have threatened tough action against Saudi Arabia over the brutal killing amid claims that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — the kingdom’s de-facto ruler — was personally responsible.

The Saudi government has denied he had anything to do with the murder of Khashoggi, a royal insider-turned-critic who was a columnist with the Washington Post.

“The appointment of a new envoy signifies an attempt by Riyadh to try and re-set relations with Washington and draw a line under the Khashoggi affair, however unlikely that may be in practice, at least with Congress,” Kristian Ulrichsen, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute in the United States, told AFP.

‘First female ambassador’

Princess Rima, the daughter of a former long-time ambassador to the US, has been a leading advocate of female empowerment in the kingdom, which has faced intense criticism over the recent jailing of women activists — and subsequent claims of sexual abuse and torture of some of them in detention.

The princess previously worked at the kingdom’s General Sports Authority, where she led a campaign to increase women’s participation in sports.

“Princess Rima becomes the first female ambassador in Saudi history and the first female with a rank of minister — a strong signal to the integration of women into the government and workforce,” Ali Shihabi, founder of the pro-Saudi think-tank Arabia Foundation, said on Twitter.

Prince Khalid, a son of the king who served as ambassador since 2017, had been expected to leave Washington for some time — particularly after the global outcry over Khashoggi tarnished the kingdom’s reputation.

His new appointment as deputy defence minister comes as a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia remains bogged down in a four-year conflict in neighbouring Yemen.

A separate royal decree on Saturday ordered a one-month salary bonus for frontline military officials on the kingdom’s southern border.

‘Difficult portfolio’

Prince Khalid, a former Saudi air force pilot, takes his post a year after the crown prince — who also serves as the defence minister — announced a military reform plan and a dramatic overhaul of top defence commanders.

“As the Yemen war drags on and the military reform programme continues to move painstakingly slow, Prince Khalid is gaining a difficult portfolio but one that is critical to his father, brother and the kingdom,” Becca Wasser, a policy analyst at the US-based RAND Corporation, told AFP.

“Prince Mohammed has struggled to delegate authority within this file which has rendered some efforts -— chiefly military reform — stagnant, and Prince Khalid’s appointment may be an attempt to reinvigorate these initiatives.”

Shihabi said Prince Khalid will virtually have the same authority as the defence minister, shouldering some of the burden on the crown prince.

Khashoggi’s killing has refocused attention on the Saudi-led coalition’s bombing campaign in Yemen, which is gripped by what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

A key challenge for Princess Rima will be to win over US lawmakers, who earlier this month voted overwhelmingly to end American involvement in the Saudi war effort in Yemen, dealing a rebuke to President Donald Trump who has publicly thrown his support behind the crown prince.

US lawmakers this month also said they were probing whether Trump was rushing to sell sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, voicing fears that it could be misused to make an atomic bomb.

There was deafening applause from the floor.

The man making the introduction was Unisel vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Mohammad Redzuan Oth­man who has been devoted to Anwar since their undergraduate years in Universiti Malaya.

Anwar basked in the adulation. But it was a different story a day later when he was informed of se­­veral banners that had appeared overnight in the city, lauding him as the eighth prime minister while asking Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad to step down.

He immediately asked his party officials to remove the banners.

Just as Dr Mahathir is finding it tough to be prime minister the second time around, Anwar is finding it to be a case of so close yet so far away.

He is surely aware of the joke that he might be “PM-in-waiting for­ever”.

Moreover, all eyes tend to turn on him each time there are allegations of a plot against Dr Mahathir.

That was what happened when news of a potential vote of no confidence in Parliament started making the rounds.

At around the same time, a list of MPs said to have pledged their allegiance to Anwar went viral.

There were 101 names on the list, which suggests that Anwar is only 12 names short of a simple majority in Parliament. However, it was hard to take the list seriously because it included some Umno MPs who had jumped to Bersatu.

“There are people coming to see Anwar, to pledge allegiance, to ask him to do something. But he is not entertaining what they say.

“My boss will wait. He intends to hold on to his end of the (succession) agreement, and he believes that Dr Mahathir will keep his word,” said Farhash Wafa Salvador, Perak PKR chief and a close aide of Anwar.

As Farhash pointed out, it was not a personal agreement but one made between Dr Mahathir and Pakatan Harapan.

Of course, Anwar gets wind of what the Bersatu leaders think of him and is also aware of attempts to block his ascent.

But the post-Sungai Buloh Anwar seems more mellowed, patient and rather sanguine about life and politics.

“He does not want to get distracted by the political noise that goes on between him and Dr Mahathir,” said Farhash.

Visitors to his Jalan Gasing office say he is relaxed and wants to go with the flow.

He is very active on Twitter, especially on national policies, although it must be quite a struggle to ignore the provocative tweets of his es­­tranged deputy president Datuk Seri Azmin Ali.

Relations between him and Azmin have broken down irrevocably although both of them held hands and smiled for the camera when Anwar visited Azmin after the latter’s surgery. Some have described the occasion as an Oscar-worthy moment.

There were calls at the Bersatu AGM for Dr Mahathir to serve a full term, which Anwar chose to ignore.

Anwar is playing the long game. He can afford to wait or, to put it delicately, he is 71 and Dr Mahathir is 93.

Most of all, Anwar understands all too well the prime minister’s powers of incumbency. He tasted the full blast of it in 1998 and has no wish to experience it again.

To be fair to Anwar, talk of a potential vote of no confidence actually started after Dr Mahathir began recruiting ex-Umno MPs.

Speculation reached a crescendo after the Prime Minister struck an understanding of support with PAS leaders.

It is understood that Dr Mahathir has also been meeting individual MPs to sniff out where they stand and at least two Amanah leaders are believed to support Dr Mahathir.

When the Prime Minister made an official visit to the Defence Ministry last Friday, the perception was that Defence Minister Moha­mad Sabu was one of them.

As everyone knows, all prime ministers want a strong hold on the Defence and Home ministries.

Despite denials of a showdown in Parliament, the coming session will be closely watched.

Any attempt to move a vote of no confidence has to be done with all the numbers in hand. Otherwise, it will be an instantaneous death by numbers for the person behind it.

And if the session passes without drama, the next potential flashpoint is the Cabinet reshuffle that is ex­­pected to take place sometime in May.

A reshuffle after only one year is actually too soon for any government. But it has become a necessity for Dr Mahathir, given the host of complaints about some of his ministers and deputy ministers.

The complaints range from sheer incompetence to their inability to speak decent Bahasa Malaysia.

The feedback from some senior government servants is that the current government is reminiscent of the time when Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was in charge.

Even Tun Daim Zainuddin, the man widely perceived as the power behind the scenes, said in an interview with Sin Chew Daily that some of the ministers are “L licence drivers” whereas Dr Mahathir is used to the F1 circuit.

Dr Mahathir’s recruitment of ex-­Umno MPs is not only about the numbers game, but also to give him more choice in the event of a Cabinet reshuffle.

He needs experienced hands, like Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, to connect with the Malay base as well as deal with the civil service.

It is no secret that some Pakatan government figures have encountered problems with the civil service. There is still some distrust and these leaders are paying the price for bad-mouthing everything to do with the government during their years in the opposition.

There is even gossip in Putrajaya that a non-Malay minister had tried to resign out of frustration.

The impending reshuffle will happen at the mid-point of Dr Mahathir’s two-year tenure.

As such, there is an expectation that the reshuffle will pave the way for a succession Cabinet.

But strangely enough, no one is expecting Anwar to replace Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as the No.2.

Instead, the gossip is that Dr Mahathir is eyeing Datuk Seri Azmin Ali for the No.2 job or even as the second Deputy Prime Minister.

That will be controversial and could spark off a showdown.

“Why should Mahathir rock the boat with something like that? He is the captain, he wants the ship to sail on. Rock the boat and the captain may sink with the boat,” said Minaq Jinggo, a photojournalist and long-time admirer of Dr Mahathir.

By the time Dr Mahathir is ready to reshuffle his Cabinet, his party should have at least 27 MPs, thanks to the crossovers. It will strengthen his hand to do what is needed.

But the man to watch in the coming months is actually Azmin.

If Dr Mahathir is Anwar’s biggest threat, then Azmin is the second biggest threat.

The Economic Affairs Minister is poised for bigger things on account of his experience, age and personality.

The three of them will be the key players in the coming months.

Trump and Kim are due to meet in Hanoi from February 27-28 — their second face-to-face since a summit in Singapore in June that produced a vaguely worded agreement on denuclearisation.

Here is a look at how China continues to make its presence felt as the summit approaches.

Why did the Cold War allies have a falling out?

China has supported the Kim dynasty since the Korean War, but Pyongyang’s nuclear programme has threatened Beijing’s desire for stability in the region and strained the relationship between the Cold War allies.

Ties dropped to a low point in 2017 following a series of nuclear and ballistic missile tests, with China backing a raft of UN sanctions, including bans on North Korean exports of coal, iron and seafood.

“Previously China saw North Korea as a useful buffer against the US,” said Zhao Tong, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing.

But Pyongyang’s weapons testing has created headaches for Beijing, “and China felt North Korea was increasingly becoming a liability rather than an asset,” he added.

Why have relations improved? 

A turning point came when Kim travelled to Beijing to meet with President Xi Jinping last year — the young leader’s first foreign trip since he came to power.

Since then, the leaders have met three more times in China, though Xi has yet to act on invitations to visit North Korea.

A closer relationship with Beijing gives Pyongyang leverage over the US, analysts say. As North Korea’s main trading partner and sole major ally, China’s economic support and diplomatic backing are also crucial to Pyongyang in case talks with the US fall through.

“Kim may be working to play China and the United States off of each other — in making frequent visits to Beijing, Kim is signalling to the Trump administration that he has other options,” said Emily Weinstein, a research analyst at Pointe Bello.

But the improved ties should not be exaggerated, said Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“I believe that Kim recognises that he must show some deference to China, but he seeks to reduce his country’s dependence on China and diversify its options,” she said.

Is China worried about Trump and Kim’s bromance?

Despite the frequent meetings, there appears to be little love lost between the Asian leaders.

Former US ambassador to China Max Baucus told the BBC in 2017 that Xi “does not like that man (Kim) at all”, and analysts say their relationship is strategic rather than one based on trust.

In contrast, Kim and Trump have shifted from trading vicious personal attacks to a budding bromance, with the US president saying they “fell in love” upon exchanging a series of letters following their meeting in Singapore.

Personal chemistry aside, the prospect of closer ties between Washington and Pyongyang is worrying for Beijing, which wants to keep Pyongyang out of America’s sphere of influence but also wants denuclearisation, analysts say.

“Beijing fears a fundamental shift that would result in the US having a better relationship with North Korea than China has,” said Glaser, adding that this is an unlikely outcome in the near term.

“A Trump-Kim deal in which the US and North Korea keep talking and there is incremental progress toward the goal of denuclearisation is beneficial for China.”

How has China kept its influence over North Korea? 

China’s influence is palpable as the summit approaches, with Kim making another trip to Beijing last month — seen by analysts as a meeting to coordinate strategy with Xi.

Kim could meet with Xi again before the summit, as his train reportedly crossed into China late Saturday.

Though his presence on board the train was not confirmed, a long train ride across his giant neighbour to reach Vietnam is another symbol of China’s unavoidable role in the diplomatic shuffle.

Beijing lent Kim a plane to travel to Singapore in June.

China called for easing sanctions on Pyongyang in September, undercutting US attempts to exert international pressure on Pyongyang to give up its weapons program.

“China has resumed some of the economic and trading relationship with North Korea and that has been very helpful for North Korea to survive under the very harsh international maximum pressure campaign led by the United States,” said Zhao.

If that train trundles all the way to Hanoi carrying the North Korean leader, it’ll mean a nearly 4,000-kilometre (2,500-mile), 60-hour journey on board for Kim.

He is not long back from his last rail trip. On that occasion, in January, he travelled to Beijing with his entourage in an olive-green train emblazoned with a yellow stripe.

The engine and carriages appeared similar, possibly identical, to the train Kim used the previous year to travel to the Chinese capital for his first overseas visit.

His predecessors, father Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, also preferred rail for their domestic and overseas travels.

International childhood, domestic rule

Kim Jong Un studied in Switzerland in the 1990s, including at the International School of Berne, along with his brother and sister and is believed to have visited Germany and France during the period.

Unconfirmed South Korean news reports said Jong Un and his brother Jong Chol visited Tokyo Disneyland as children using fake passports to enter Japan in 1991.

Infamously, his eldest brother Jong Nam — assassinated at Kuala Lumpur’s international airport in 2017 in a killing widely blamed on Pyongyang — tried to do the same in 2001, using a Dominican Republic passport, but was stopped at Japanese immigration.

Kim Jong Un is known to travel by air domestically, and is said to have accompanied his father on a 2011 train trip to China, but it is believed that last year’s trip to Beijing was his first journey abroad since ascending to power.

In 2015, the Kremlin announced Kim would be attending ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, but the visit was cancelled with no reason given.

Fear of flying

Kim’s father Kim Jong Il was renowned for his fear of flying, limiting his foreign trips to overland journeys to China and Russia by armoured train.

His 2011 trip to China was a marathon 6,000-kilometre journey, taking in Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai among other destinations.

Kim Jong Il also took a train to Russia in 2001. According to an account published the following year by Konstantin Pulikovsky — a Russian official who travelled with him during the three-week trip — the train was stocked with fresh lobster and cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines from Paris.

He made a second trip to Moscow in 2011, when he met then-president Dmitry Medvedev in the Siberian city of Ulan-Ude.

At the time, residents near the Bureya rail station were told to stay in their houses and not look out of windows as his train arrived.

Air miles

Of the three Kims, the North’s founding father Kim Il Sung was the most frequent overseas traveller.

He secretly visited Moscow in 1949 to meet Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and seek support for his plan to reunify the divided Korean peninsula by force.

The following year, Kim Il Sung’s forces invaded the South, triggering the Korean War that pitted Pyongyang’s Chinese- and Russian-backed troops against a US-led United Nations alliance.

In 1961, Kim Il Sung returned to Moscow to meet then-General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and the two countries signed a mutual defence pact.

He was a prominent figure in the Non-Aligned Movement and attended a conference of Asian and African countries in 1965 in Bandung, Indonesia, bringing along his son.

In 1990, he travelled secretly to China, reportedly to discuss warming relations between South Korea and the Soviet Union with Chinese leaders, including Jiang Zemin.

Kim Il Sung’s longest train trip was in 1984, a tour of the Soviet Union and other East European countries — Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Romania.

The carriages Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il used for their travels are on display in the Kumsusan mausoleum in Pyongyang, where their bodies lie in state — with a Macintosh computer on Kim Jong Il’s desk.

The train arrived in the border city of Dandong after 9 pm local time (1300 GMT), according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency and the specialist outlet NK News, though it was not known whether Kim was on on board.

The train’s crossing into China follows days of speculation over Kim’s travel plans, which remain shrouded in secrecy, as his team gathered in Hanoi ahead of the talks expected next Wednesday and Thursday.

Security was tight before the train’s arrival, with police cordoning off the riverfront some 100 metres (yards) from the bridge with tape and metal barriers, and leading an AFP journalist out of the area.

Guests at a hotel facing the rail bridge from North Korea were suddenly asked to leave on Friday and told it was closed Saturday for impromptu renovations.

“The train is long and crossed the bridge slower than the tourist train, but its definitely him, there’s a lot of police presence,” an unidentified source told NK News.

Epic journey?

Windows on the train were blacked out, the source said, with only headlights turned on as it crossed.

Kim has previously travelled in an armoured train to Beijing and, if he is on board, may stop in the Chinese capital on what could be an epic journey to Vietnam, meeting President Xi Jinping prior to his second face-to-face with the US president.

Or he could save the meeting for his return trip to debrief his country’s sole major ally.

Trump and Kim met in June in Singapore, producing a vaguely worded agreement on denuclearisation, but progress has since stalled, with the two sides disagreeing over what the agreement meant.

Observers say tangible progress is needed in Hanoi to avoid the talks being dismissed as a publicity stunt.

Kim travelled to Singapore last year on a plane lent by Beijing, and it remained unclear whether he would ride all the way to Hanoi by rail — a nearly 4,000-kilometre (2,500-mile) journey taking more than 60 hours from Pyongyang.

Another option would be to take the train to Beijing and catch a plane to the Vietnamese capital.

But several sources said Kim was expected to arrive in Vietnam by train, stopping at the Dong Dang train station near the China border, then driving to Hanoi.

On Saturday soldiers were deployed to Dong Dang station and along the road to the capital, according to AFP reporters at the scene.

It came after Vietnam announced the unprecedented move of closing that 170-kilometre stretch of road on Tuesday between 6:00 am and 2:00 pm — suggesting Kim could travel on the road between those hours.

The Vietnamese foreign ministry said Saturday that Kim would “pay an official visit to Vietnam in the coming days”. He is expected to tack on a visit to industrial zones in Vietnam’s Quang Ninh and Bac Ninh provinces, sources told AFP.

Grandfather’s footsteps

Rail travel is a family tradition that was started by Kim’s grandfather, the North’s founder Kim Il Sung. His late father, Kim Jong Il, travelled all the way to Moscow by train in 2001.

“It sends a strong message to North Koreans that Kim Jong Un has inherited his grandfather’s good qualities, and the Kim Dynasty is stronger than ever,” Koh Yu-hwan, professor at Seoul’s Dongguk University, said.

Jeong Young-tae of the Institute of North Korean Studies in Seoul said the safest way to travel would be to take a plane provided by Beijing.

“But by choosing to travel by their own special train over a Chinese aircraft, Pyongyang may be signalling its willingness to be independent.”

China has one of the most extensive railway systems in the world, with 130,000 kilometres of tracks — enough infrastructure to circle the Earth three times.

Still, a journey from China’s frozen northern border to subtropical Vietnam would present a logistical headache and complex security challenges.

“The best route is the Beijing-Guangzhou line,” said Zhao Jian, who studies China’s railway system at Beijing Jiaotong University, describing a route that would see Kim travel straight down to southern China, before heading west into Guangxi province, which borders Vietnam.

Justin Hastings, associate professor in international relations at the University of Sydney, said that would be “a pretty major operation”.

“They would have to clear the tracks, they would have to provide security for basically the entire length of the Chinese eastern seaboard,” he said.

But China may view the hassle as a necessary cost to get Kim to the summit, he told AFP.

“China wants North Korea to make some steps to denuclearise as much as anyone else.”