'US held secret talks with Taliban'

[ghundal]

'US held secret talks with Taliban'
Tue May 17, 2011 3:46PM
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Taliban militants (file photo)
A US media report suggests that Washington has held several rounds of direct talks and is trying to reach a settlement with Taliban militants in Afghanistan.


The Washington Post said in a report on Tuesday that the plan was initiated several months ago to work out a settlement.

The report comes one day after State Department spokesman Michael A. Hammer said that the US had a "broad range of contacts across Afghanistan and the region, at many levels. . . . We're not going to get into the details of those contacts."

The White House has refused to further comment on the issue.

However, an American official said Afghan authorities have been briefed on the contacts between the US and the Taliban.

A senior Afghan official has confirmed that US representatives met with a Taliban figure close to the group's leader in three countries, including Germany.

The development comes after senior officials in the US and the UK floated the idea of making peace with the Taliban, although the annihilation of militants was one of the main objectives of the 2001 US-led invasion.

US President Barack Obama has frequently blamed Pakistan for not doing enough to fight terrorism in its troubled northwestern tribal belt along the Afghan border.

American aircraft frequently attack Pakistani tribal regions, targeting alleged militant hideouts but locals say civilians are the main victims of the unauthorized attacks.

Pakistani officials have dismissed reports that the country's tribal areas are a safe haven for terrorists.

Meanwhile, senior Afghan and Pakistani officials have frequently said that efforts by Washington to make peace with the Taliban are bound to fail without the assistance of Kabul and Islamabad.

JR/HGH/AKM

[ghundal]

the only talks would be for withdrawal, and nothing else if this is even true. They lie all the time about this stuff.

[Toramana]

The administration has accelerated direct talks with the Taliban, initiated several months ago, that U.S. officials say they hope will enable President Obama to report progress toward a settlement of the Afghanistan war when he announces troop withdrawals in July.

A senior Afghan official said a U.S. representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...s=rss_homepage

[Toramana]

US speeds up direct talks with Afghan Taliban: report
* US representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar, Germany with a Taliban official considered close to Mullah Omar

SINGAPORE: The United States has stepped up direct talks with the Afghan Taliban for a political settlement of the 10-year-old war, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, a move that analysts said earlier was easier following the death of Osama bin Laden.

A US representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, including one “eight or nine days ago” with a Taliban official considered close to the group’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the report said, citing an Afghan official.

It said that Washington was hoping to make progress in these talks before July, when President Barack Obama announces the first troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, part of a process of handing over responsibilities to Afghan forces by 2014.

The report about the talks comes more than two weeks after the death of bin Laden at the hands of US special forces in Pakistan, which analysts said helped clear the path for a political settlement in Afghanistan by making it easier for the Taliban to sever ties with his al Qaeda.

The Taliban sheltered bin Laden in Afghanistan for years, until US-backed Afghan forces toppled them in 2001, unleashing a war between US-led NATO forces and Taliban.

But with insurgent violence in Afghanistan at its highest in years and falling domestic support for the war, Western nations, including the United States, have come to back Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s efforts to seek reconciliation with the Taliban.

The Washington Post said the talks with the Taliban had taken place through non-government intermediaries and Arab and European governments. The Taliban, it said, had insisted on direct negotiations with the Americans and proposed opening a formal office, with Qatar as a possible venue.

The discussions were still preliminary. It said the Taliban had transmitted a longstanding list of demands, including the release of up to 20 fighters detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It also wanted withdrawal of all foreign troops and a guarantee of a substantive Taliban role in government.

The US and Afghan governments want the Taliban to end all violence and to observe the Afghan constitution, including respect for women’s and minority rights and the rule of law.

The report said the discussions were being conducted with the part of the Taliban that answered to Mullah Omar or had influence in his Pakistan-based Quetta Shura.

It quoted officials as saying that no role had been played by the Haqqani network, a group of Afghan fighters based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region seen by the Obama administration as particularly brutal and irreconcilable.

The Haqqani network has had longstanding links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, seen to have used the insurgent group as one of its ‘strategic assets’ in Afghanistan.

The ISI is under a cloud following the discovery and killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad, facing questions of complicity in shielding him or plain incompetence. reuters...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...8-5-2011_pg7_1