The Foreign Secretary proposed today that the Allies should change strategy in Afghanistan to include talks with elements of the Taleban.In a speech at Nato headquarters, David Miliband said that while it was vital to keep pressing forward with the military campaign that has started to take the battle to the insurgents, it would also be prudent to start a Northern Ireland-style dialogue with the enemy.
Mr Miliband urged Nato members to support the Afghan government and help it to play a role in working for reconciliation once the fighting stopped.
"Taleban commanders and foot soldiers face an increasingly debilitating struggle," said Mr Miliband. "We need to help the Afghan government to make more convincing efforts to fragment the insurgency."
Mr Miliband paid tribute to members of the armed forces who had died and been injured in the latest fighting. This month has been the bloodiest for the UK and Nato in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001 after the September 11 terror attacks in New York.
Last week Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the head of the armed forces, warned that British troops in Afghanistan faced more tough fighting and more casualties in the weeks ahead. Troops taking part in Operation Panther's Claw, the latest British offensive, had faced an enormous battle to break through the Taleban defences.
Earlier today Douglas Alexander, the International Development Secretary, who is visiting Helmand, confirmed Britain's backing for talks with moderate Taleban leaders to help bring a swifter end to the conflict. He admitted it was not easy to argue for peace talks when British soldiers were dying.
"It is a difficult message for politicians to talk about the issues of reconciliation and reintegration when British troops are fighting the Taleban," Mr Alexander told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
"But I have confidence in the good judgment of the British people. I think that people recognise from the experience of places like Northern Ireland that it is necessary to put military pressure on the Taleban while at the same time holding out the prospect that there can be a political precess that can follow, whereby those that are willing to renunciate violence can follow a different path."
Mr Alexander said he had last night pressed President Obama's special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, to increase the amount of US support for the Afghan government. Currently the US gives less than five per cent of its Afghan reconstruction budget to the country's central administration, prefering to spend the rest according to its own priorities. Britain gives 85 per cent.
"If we do want to see sustainable development in Afghanistan, sustainable security, building up the Afghan national army, building up the capacity of the state to deliver justice, to deliver basic services like health and education, then we do need to do a better job as an international community in supporting the state," said Mr Alexander.