American and Taliban officials resumed talks in Qatar on Wednesday aimed at ending a 17-year war in Afghanistan, while the Afghan government hosted a rare assembly in Kabul to ensure its interests are upheld in any peace deal, reports Reuters.

The Taliban issued a statement saying the U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, had met the Taliban’s political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is heading the Islamist militants’ delegation.

“Views were exchanged about key aspects for a peaceful resolution of the Afghan issue,” its spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The talks are part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to end America’s longest war, which began when U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

Since October, U.S. and Taliban officials have held several rounds of talks aimed at ensuring a safe departure for U.S. forces in return for a Taliban guarantee that Afghanistan will not be used by militants to threaten the rest of the world.

In this round, Khalilzad and his delegation are expected to focus on a declaration of a ceasefire as a first step to end the fighting, said a western diplomat in Kabul.

An official working closely with Khalilzad said he is expected to encourage the insurgent group to engage in Afghan-to-Afghan talks to find a political settlement to end the war, but Mujahid said the Afghan representatives were not allowed to attend the ongoing talks. “No other side except the U.S. and Taliban representatives in the meeting, but some Qatari officials will remain present as hosts,” he told Reuters.

This week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani convened a rare grand assembly known as the Loya Jirga to set out Kabul’s conditions for peace talks with the Taliban.

The Taliban has so far refused to talk to Kabul and have labeled the Afghan government as a “U.S. puppet.”

Ghani believes that backing from members of the Loya Jirga will strengthen his bid to be recognized as Afghanistan’s legitimate representative in the peace talks.

The United States has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of a NATO-led mission, known as Resolute Support, that is training and assisting the Afghan government’s security forces in their battle against Taliban fighters and extremist groups such as Islamic State and Al-Qaeda.

Intense fighting is still going on all over the country, and while the Taliban are negotiating, they now control and have influence over more territory than at any point since 2001.