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West in secret talks with Taliban
 Covert negotiations have begun with the Taliban in Afghanistan through a back channel Saudi-sponsored initiative, on the request of the Karzai government, a report by Jason Burke in The Observer said on Sunday.For the past few months an incongruous figure has passed through the airports of the Middle East and Europe - a senior Afghan cleric who defected from the Taliban, the paper said. Bearded and in traditional dress, he has unsurprisingly needed the help of the Saudi Arabian and British intelligence services, among others, to pass unhindered between capitals. His mission - to talk to the Taliban leadership about a possible peace deal. The backing given by the West to these talks is a measure of how badly things have gone wrong in Afghanistan, and how far Western governments are prepared to go to stabilise a deteriorating situation which is costing more in men, money and political capital than they ever imagined. Invitation: The newspaper said that the Saudis accepting the invitation of the Afghan government to sponsor the initiative this summer is a measure of how concerned those who govern the traditionally leading nation of the Sunni Muslim world are about Afghanistan and Al Qaeda and the consequences they might have for the rest of the Islamic world and beyond. This is not the first time the Saudi Arabians have brokered talks with the Taliban, and Western powers have been keen to get Riyadh more involved in Afghanistan for some time, it said. In 1998, they nearly concluded a deal with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban, to hand over Osama Bin Laden, The Observer said. For the West, the sponsorship of Riyadh is essential. Western efforts to negotiate with the Taliban have rarely brought any durable positive results. But these most recent talks also show that, at the very least, some in the Taliban senior command are getting tired. "They've been fighting for nearly seven years, living undercover, moving regularly, unable to go back to Afghanistan without risking a violent death. Despite the bellicose rhetoric and the successes of recent months, they have lost a lot of people and there is a certain degree of fatigue," the newspaper quoted an experienced Pakistan-based observer. The Saudi initiative has resulted in the submission of a list of demands by the Taliban to Kabul. One problem was that those demands keep changing, said one Afghan source. A second is the question of whether any potential agreement could be made to stick. The Taliban demands are also unlikely to be acceptable to the Western powers, especially the US. Another problem would be convincing other ethnic groups in Afghanistan, who suffered heavily under the Taliban regime, to accept any deal. The Taliban published a statement on their website saying they would "fight until the withdrawal of the last crusading invader", but added that "the door for talks, understanding and negotiations will always be open" to 'mujahideen'. Posted by: Fred 2008-09-29 |
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