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| Afghanistan |
| Karzai in talks with Haqqani: Afghan lawmaker |
| 2010-10-21 |
| [Dawn] The Afghan government has been in reconciliation talks for months with members of a Taliban faction closely tied to al-Qaeda and responsible for lethal attacks on coalition forces and bombings inside the capital, Kabul, according to a member of the Afghan parliament. The parliamentarian, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai's government had been in direct contact with Jalaludin Haqqani, the aging leader of the Haqqani network, which is based in Pakistain and is believed to have close ties to Pakistain's intelligence service. The network is being run by his son, Sirajuddin. The New York Times reported Wednesday that three members of the Taliban's leadership council, known as the Quetta shura, also have taken part in preliminary discussions with the Afghan government, according to an Afghan official and a former diplomat in the region. The newspaper said the White House and an Afghan who has participated in the discussions requested that the newspaper withhold the names of the three Taliban leaders plus a member of the Haqqani family who were involved in the talks presumably to shield them from reprisal attacks. Confirmation of talks with the Haqqani network would indicate that negotiations are being held with more than a handful of disaffected low- to mid-level faceless myrmidons as the US and its allies seek an end to the more than nine-year-old war. While skeptical in the past, the US last week expressed support for the Afghan government's efforts to talk with senior members of the Taliban. Karzai, meanwhile, has asked Pakistain to hand over 31 Taliban figures who have been detained in the neighboring country, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taliban's No. 2 leader who was jugged in February in a joint raid with the CIA, according to peace negotiators in Kabul. The Taliban released a statement Tuesday saying no top leaders of the Taliban, known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, have been talking to the Afghan government. The statement was issued by Mullah Abdul Kabir, a member of the Taliban ruling council and rumored to be among the figures open to a peace deal. ''They mention names of a few members of the leadership, saying they have had contacts with them or at least shown willingness to initiate negotiation,'' Kabir said in the statement. ''The enemy has not produced any evidence despite many claims to indicate that the officials of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan were engaged in talks with them.'' US officials have long said they didn't expect the Taliban the hard-line Islamic movement that harbored Osama bin Laden to talk peace as long as the snuffies believed they were winning. The Taliban's refusal to hand over bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US triggered the Afghan war. That stance changed publicly last week when US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton backed exploratory talks between the Afghan government and the bully boys. Top NATO commander, Gen. David Petraeus, confirmed that coalition forces were providing safe passage to some top Taliban leaders who were talking to the Afghan government. The new acceptance of reconciliation could be seen as an admission that the war is going badly. Or it may reflect the view of US military commanders that NATO troops have damaged the insurgency following the surge of more than 30,000 US forces ordered by President Barack B.O.Obama. Richard Holbrooke, US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistain, attributed an increase in contacts with individuals linked to the Taliban to stepped up military pressure that NATO and its Afghan allies were placing on the beturbanned goons. Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former foreign minister and confidant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar also denied that top Taliban leaders were engaged in talks. ''There is no trust line between the US and international community and the Taliban,'' Muttawakil said Tuesday in an interview. ''Because of this, the Taliban are not serious about talking.'' He demanded that the US and its international partners release Taliban prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay and remove the names of Taliban figures from the U.N. sanctions list to build trust. Muttawakil said face-to-face talks would be too difficult right now. He suggested that if formal negotiations are eventually held, it would be better to hold them in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or Germany. Some analysts believe the detention of the Taliban figures, including some who were exploring reconciliation, was driven by Pakistain's desire to influence any peace deal in Afghanistan. A senior Pak security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue publicly, said Islambad has not been asked to assist in the talks and does not know the identities of the participants. |
| Posted by:Fred |