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Taliban to Meet With Northern Foes
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and NATHAN HODGE
KABUL—Afghanistan's Taliban have reached out to their historical enemies in the Northern Alliance, opening initial contacts to discuss the country's future once the U.S.-led forces depart and President Hamid Karzai steps down in 2014.
In the first such meeting between authorized representatives of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the key leaders of the Northern Alliance, which fought a losing war against the Taliban before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, more than a dozen senior Afghan politicians are scheduled to travel to France this month.
The meeting, sponsored by a French think tank, is unlikely to produce immediate results, and might ultimately fail to prevent a breakout of a renewed civil war after 2014. But it would allow the two sides to feel out each other's stance, and possibilities for an eventual compromise, after more than a decade of rejecting the very idea of direct negotiations.
"Let's see what the Taliban say when we talk to them face to face. It is very important that we know what is the position of the Taliban," said Ahmad Zia Massoud, the brother of Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al Qaeda in 2001. "We seek an understanding between us and the Taliban, to know their views and finally to pave the way to reaching peace."
Mr. Massoud, who served as Afghanistan's vice president under Mr. Karzai and now heads the National Front alliance of opposition groups, is one of the expected participants. All the parties to the conflict were increasingly exhausted after 11 years of fighting, he said: "The Taliban got tired of this war. And the Afghan government and the international community are also tired of this war."
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The U.S., which has held separate talks with the Taliban this year, is endorsing the process of Afghans talking to Afghans, as are the United Nations and European nations. As part of their negotiations with the U.S., the Taliban this year began to establish a political office staffed with authorized representatives of Mullah Omar in the Gulf emirate Qatar.
Officials involved in the process say that the contacts between the Taliban and the U.S., which involve negotiations about swapping Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a U.S. Army sergeant held captive by the Taliban, are likely to resume in coming weeks after being suspended by the insurgents in March.
Though agreeing to talk with the U.S. and Northern Alliance politicians, the Taliban have repeatedly rejected the idea of negotiating with Mr. Karzai, describing him as a powerless stooge of foreign invaders. Afghanistan's presidential elections are scheduled for April 2014, and under the constitution Mr. Karzai isn't allowed to run again.
Still, at least two of Mr. Karzai's senior advisers are expected to attend the Paris meeting, including his point man on reconciliation, Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai, other invitees said.
"These are not peace talks, just an exchange of views among Afghans—but it's a very good opportunity for both sides to learn about each other," said Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban foreign ministry official who has been involved in mediating between the Taliban and Northern Alliance politicians. As part of these contacts, Mr. Muzhda shuttled in recent months between Kabul, Peshawar, Dubai and Qatar.
While Mr. Karzai has in the past expressed hostility to the Taliban establishing an office in Qatar, and to any talks that bypass him, the Afghan government endorsed the planned meeting in France. "Any dialogue about the future of Afghanistan, any exchange of ideas—we welcome this because it is about peace and stability," said Mr. Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi.
Similar meetings in France previously brought together Afghan politicians and the so-called Kabul Taliban—senior officials of the former Taliban regime who are no longer involved in the insurgency and don't represent the Taliban high command.
In the meeting planned for this month, however, the Taliban delegation is expected to be headed by Shahabuddin Dilawar, a senior member of the Taliban political branch that began operating out of Qatar, other invitees and diplomats said. Mr. Muzhda confirmed Mr. Dilawar's planned attendance.
A former Taliban ambassador to Riyadh and Islamabad who served as deputy head of the Taliban Supreme Court in 2001, Mr. Dilawar is on the United Nations sanctions blacklist, and his travel to Paris would require a special waiver from a U.N. committee. While the waiver hasn't yet been granted, diplomats in Kabul said they expected it would be issued in time for the meeting.
The U.N., diplomats say, plans another seminar uniting Afghan politicians and authorized representatives of the Taliban high command sometime early next year, probably in the central Asian republic of Turkmenistan.
Mr. Karzai, like the Taliban's key leaders, is an ethnic Pashtun from the southern city of Kandahar. The Northern Alliance unified the mostly non-Pashtun power brokers and warlords from the country's ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities that dominate the country's northern and western provinces.
Some of these power brokers serve in Mr. Karzai's administration—such as the influential governor of the northern Balkh province, Mohammed Atta. Others, such as Mr. Karzai's former challengers in the presidential elections, Abdullah Abdullah and Yunus Qanooni, belong to the opposition. Most of them, to one degree or another, are preparing themselves for the possibility of a civil war after 2014, with allied militias stockpiling weapons and ammunition, diplomats say.
Mr. Qanooni, the former speaker of Afghanistan's parliament, is also planning to attend the meeting in France. In an interview, he hailed the Taliban's willingness to reach out to their Northern Alliance foes. "It is a positive view that accepts the realities of this country," he said. "The forces that fought the Taliban in the past represent the huge majority of the nation, and therefore no reconciliation will happen without an understanding with them."
Northern Alliance leaders bitterly criticized Mr. Karzai for beginning his own outreach to the Taliban three years ago, accusing him of selling out to the insurgency and of trying to strike a deal at the expense of the non-Pashtun minorities.
Even now, not all of the expected participants in the planned encounters in France are optimistic. "The Taliban's views are not civilized views, and until they change their thinking it's difficult to have hopes," said Mohammed Mohaqeq, a former leading Hazara warlord. "But we will not close the dialogue."
Pakistan, which shelters the Taliban's top leadership and finances the insurgency, has long opposed any negotiations that it doesn't control, jailing the Taliban's second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in 2010 for unauthorized contacts with Kabul.
These days, however, Pakistan appears to have softened its stance, issuing Taliban officials with passports so they could set up the Qatar mission. In recent weeks, Pakistan agreed to long-standing Kabul requests and freed some Taliban detainees. It also agreed to hold in Kabul a joint conference of Islamic scholars that's expected to condemn the use of suicide bombings.
Following a visit to Islamabad last week by Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, the two governments issued a joint statement backing an "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process."
Diplomats and Afghan officials, however, are unsure whether Pakistan's overtures are sincere. "There will not be peace in Afghanistan without the honest cooperation of Pakistan," Mr. Qanooni said. "We see a change of tactics from Pakistan. We need a change of Pakistan's strategy toward Afghanistan."
The establishment of a Taliban office in Qatar "will protect from Pakistani influence those Taliban who favor this reconciliation," he added. "This is a chance, not a challenge."
Corrections & Amplifications
Yunus Qanooni is the former speaker of the Afghan parliament. An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to him as the current speaker.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
Taliban to Meet With Northern Foes
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and NATHAN HODGE
KABUL—Afghanistan's Taliban have reached out to their historical enemies in the Northern Alliance, opening initial contacts to discuss the country's future once the U.S.-led forces depart and President Hamid Karzai steps down in 2014.
In the first such meeting between authorized representatives of Taliban leader Mullah Omar and the key leaders of the Northern Alliance, which fought a losing war against the Taliban before the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, more than a dozen senior Afghan politicians are scheduled to travel to France this month.
The meeting, sponsored by a French think tank, is unlikely to produce immediate results, and might ultimately fail to prevent a breakout of a renewed civil war after 2014. But it would allow the two sides to feel out each other's stance, and possibilities for an eventual compromise, after more than a decade of rejecting the very idea of direct negotiations.
"Let's see what the Taliban say when we talk to them face to face. It is very important that we know what is the position of the Taliban," said Ahmad Zia Massoud, the brother of Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al Qaeda in 2001. "We seek an understanding between us and the Taliban, to know their views and finally to pave the way to reaching peace."
Mr. Massoud, who served as Afghanistan's vice president under Mr. Karzai and now heads the National Front alliance of opposition groups, is one of the expected participants. All the parties to the conflict were increasingly exhausted after 11 years of fighting, he said: "The Taliban got tired of this war. And the Afghan government and the international community are also tired of this war."
More
The U.S., which has held separate talks with the Taliban this year, is endorsing the process of Afghans talking to Afghans, as are the United Nations and European nations. As part of their negotiations with the U.S., the Taliban this year began to establish a political office staffed with authorized representatives of Mullah Omar in the Gulf emirate Qatar.
Officials involved in the process say that the contacts between the Taliban and the U.S., which involve negotiations about swapping Taliban detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a U.S. Army sergeant held captive by the Taliban, are likely to resume in coming weeks after being suspended by the insurgents in March.
Though agreeing to talk with the U.S. and Northern Alliance politicians, the Taliban have repeatedly rejected the idea of negotiating with Mr. Karzai, describing him as a powerless stooge of foreign invaders. Afghanistan's presidential elections are scheduled for April 2014, and under the constitution Mr. Karzai isn't allowed to run again.
Still, at least two of Mr. Karzai's senior advisers are expected to attend the Paris meeting, including his point man on reconciliation, Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai, other invitees said.
"These are not peace talks, just an exchange of views among Afghans—but it's a very good opportunity for both sides to learn about each other," said Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban foreign ministry official who has been involved in mediating between the Taliban and Northern Alliance politicians. As part of these contacts, Mr. Muzhda shuttled in recent months between Kabul, Peshawar, Dubai and Qatar.
While Mr. Karzai has in the past expressed hostility to the Taliban establishing an office in Qatar, and to any talks that bypass him, the Afghan government endorsed the planned meeting in France. "Any dialogue about the future of Afghanistan, any exchange of ideas—we welcome this because it is about peace and stability," said Mr. Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi.
Similar meetings in France previously brought together Afghan politicians and the so-called Kabul Taliban—senior officials of the former Taliban regime who are no longer involved in the insurgency and don't represent the Taliban high command.
In the meeting planned for this month, however, the Taliban delegation is expected to be headed by Shahabuddin Dilawar, a senior member of the Taliban political branch that began operating out of Qatar, other invitees and diplomats said. Mr. Muzhda confirmed Mr. Dilawar's planned attendance.
A former Taliban ambassador to Riyadh and Islamabad who served as deputy head of the Taliban Supreme Court in 2001, Mr. Dilawar is on the United Nations sanctions blacklist, and his travel to Paris would require a special waiver from a U.N. committee. While the waiver hasn't yet been granted, diplomats in Kabul said they expected it would be issued in time for the meeting.
The U.N., diplomats say, plans another seminar uniting Afghan politicians and authorized representatives of the Taliban high command sometime early next year, probably in the central Asian republic of Turkmenistan.
Mr. Karzai, like the Taliban's key leaders, is an ethnic Pashtun from the southern city of Kandahar. The Northern Alliance unified the mostly non-Pashtun power brokers and warlords from the country's ethnic Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities that dominate the country's northern and western provinces.
Some of these power brokers serve in Mr. Karzai's administration—such as the influential governor of the northern Balkh province, Mohammed Atta. Others, such as Mr. Karzai's former challengers in the presidential elections, Abdullah Abdullah and Yunus Qanooni, belong to the opposition. Most of them, to one degree or another, are preparing themselves for the possibility of a civil war after 2014, with allied militias stockpiling weapons and ammunition, diplomats say.
Mr. Qanooni, the former speaker of Afghanistan's parliament, is also planning to attend the meeting in France. In an interview, he hailed the Taliban's willingness to reach out to their Northern Alliance foes. "It is a positive view that accepts the realities of this country," he said. "The forces that fought the Taliban in the past represent the huge majority of the nation, and therefore no reconciliation will happen without an understanding with them."
Northern Alliance leaders bitterly criticized Mr. Karzai for beginning his own outreach to the Taliban three years ago, accusing him of selling out to the insurgency and of trying to strike a deal at the expense of the non-Pashtun minorities.
Even now, not all of the expected participants in the planned encounters in France are optimistic. "The Taliban's views are not civilized views, and until they change their thinking it's difficult to have hopes," said Mohammed Mohaqeq, a former leading Hazara warlord. "But we will not close the dialogue."
Pakistan, which shelters the Taliban's top leadership and finances the insurgency, has long opposed any negotiations that it doesn't control, jailing the Taliban's second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in 2010 for unauthorized contacts with Kabul.
These days, however, Pakistan appears to have softened its stance, issuing Taliban officials with passports so they could set up the Qatar mission. In recent weeks, Pakistan agreed to long-standing Kabul requests and freed some Taliban detainees. It also agreed to hold in Kabul a joint conference of Islamic scholars that's expected to condemn the use of suicide bombings.
Following a visit to Islamabad last week by Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul, the two governments issued a joint statement backing an "Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace and reconciliation process."
Diplomats and Afghan officials, however, are unsure whether Pakistan's overtures are sincere. "There will not be peace in Afghanistan without the honest cooperation of Pakistan," Mr. Qanooni said. "We see a change of tactics from Pakistan. We need a change of Pakistan's strategy toward Afghanistan."
The establishment of a Taliban office in Qatar "will protect from Pakistani influence those Taliban who favor this reconciliation," he added. "This is a chance, not a challenge."
Corrections & Amplifications
Yunus Qanooni is the former speaker of the Afghan parliament. An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to him as the current speaker.
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com and Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
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