Talks to resume despite Karzai's protest Defiant: The Taliban's Mohammed Naim (centre) and Qatari official Ali bin Fahd al-Hajri (right) in front of the controversial banner. The Obama administration expects to move ahead with plans to meet Taliban representatives in the next few days, despite Afghan President Hamid Karzai reacting angrily to the news conference at which the Taliban opened their office in Doha, Qatar. On Wednesday, Mr Karzai suspended separate talks over a key US-Afghan security pact. US officials spent much of the day scrambling to diffuse his anger over Tuesday's Doha news conference, at which the insurgents raised their flag and stood under a banner reading "the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," the name they used when they ruled most of Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001 and which they still use to express their claim to sovereignty in the country. Afghan officials said there had been written US promises that this would not be allowed. US Secretary of State John Kerry telephoned Mr Karzai twice and spoke to Qatari officials, with Washington saying publicly that Mr Karzai was "justifiably" upset. The Qataris met Mr Karzai's demands to remove an "Islamic Emirate" plaque the Taliban had fixed to the wall of their new office, and issued a statement saying the venue was to be known as the "political bureau of the Taliban." Although Mr Karzai remained defiant, the administration appeared confident the crisis had cooled sufficiently to reschedule US-Taliban talks that had been planned for Thursday. On Tuesday, hours after the handover of overall security to Afghan forces, four US soldiers were killed in an attack the Taliban said demonstrated their ongoing fight against US troops. "The mujahideen of the Islamic emirate ... have taken all the preparations that will be effective for the destruction of America's nests," it said. Officials expect the first Taliban-US talks to be of an exchange of agendas. The US wants an end to violence in Afghanistan, a complete Taliban break with al-Qaeda and Taliban recognition of the Afghan constitution. The Taliban want all foreign troops to leave Afghanistan immediately. Once those formalities are concluded, US officials expect to get down to discussing an exchange of detainees, including five Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo Bay and Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a US serviceman held by the Pakistan-based Haqqani network of militants since 2009.