KABUL, 20 October 2021, (TON): Top US envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad is stepping down, the State Department said, less than two months after the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban takeover of the country.

Khalilzad will be replaced by his deputy, Tom West, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, noting that West will work closely with the US embassy, which is now based in Doha, on US interests in Afghanistan.

A person familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that Khalilzad submitted his resignation.

His departure follows his exclusion from the Biden administration's first formal talks with the Taliban after the US pullout, held in Doha earlier in October.

Khalilzad did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Khalilzad, born in Afghanistan, held the post since 2018 and spearheaded the negotiations with the Taliban that led to the February 2020 agreement for the withdrawal of US forces this year.

He then pressed the hardline Islamist movement and the Western-backed government of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to negotiate a political settlement to decades of strife.