KABUL - President Hamid Karzai said yesterday that his government would accept the opening of a Taliban insurgents’ representative office in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar for the purpose of holding peace talks, although Saudi Arabia or Turkey would be preferable venues.
If the United States insists that the insurgents establish a liaison office in Qatar, “we are agreed,’’ Karzai said in a presidential statement.
Earlier this month, Kabul recalled its ambassador to Qatar for consultations over reports that the Taliban were planning to open an office in the tiny, gas-rich Arab state.
Related: Karzai's Chatter
To date, the Islamist group has not publicly responded to peace offers. The insurgents, who perceive themselves as winning the war, have said they would not engage in talks with the government while foreign troops are on Afghan soil.
In this case, the perception is the reality.
The United States and its NATO allies have been pursuing a war against the Taliban for a decade. NATO plans to wrap up its combat activities in Afghanistan in 2014.
But they will be leaving "advisers" behind.
The government in Kabul repeatedly emphasized it would accept no foreign intervention in its plans to seek a negotiated peace with the Taliban. Afghan media reports have speculated the United States and other foreign governments with a stake in the war were trying to strike their own Taliban deal.
The prospect of peace talks suffered a serious setback in September when Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and the head of a body set up to seek contacts with the Taliban, was assassinated.
Related: Rubbing Out Rabbani
Who setback peace?
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"Afghan president welcomes US remarks on Taliban" January 01, 2012|By Slobodan Lekic
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday welcomed remarks from the Obama administration that the Taliban were not necessarily America’s enemies.
Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with Newsweek magazine that the Islamist militants did not represent a threat to US interests unless they continued to shelter al Qaeda.
“Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens US interests,’’ Biden was quoted as saying by Newsweek.
The Obama administration and other governments are trying to establish a peace process with the Taliban to help end the 10-year war.
Then why are their intelligence agencies and assets sabotaging it?
“I am very happy that the American government has announced that the Taliban are not their enemies,’’ Karzai said. “We hope that this message will help the Afghans reach peace and stability.’’
A senior US official has said Washington plans to continue secret meetings with Taliban representatives in Europe and the Persian Gulf region next year. Outreach by the United States had progressed to the point that there was active discussion of two steps the Taliban seeks as precursors to negotiations, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Trust-building measures under discussion involve setting up a Taliban headquarters office and the release from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of several Afghan prisoners believed to be affiliated with the Taliban.
On Tuesday, Karzai said his government would accept the Taliban establishing a liaison office in Turkey, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia for the purpose of holding peace talks.
Meanwhile, NATO troops yesterday handed over responsibility for security in three districts of the embattled southern Helmand province to Afghan forces.
The Helmand governor’s office said these included Marjah district, the site of a major offensive by coalition forces last year. Coalition operations to rout the Taliban in February 2010 yielded slower than expected returns, but a troop buildup later in the year pushed insurgents out of the center of the district.
Yeah, whatever, mouthpiece media.
See: Taliban Spring Offensive Fizzles
Yeah, we "won" Marjah.
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I'm tired of mouthpiece media talk.
"Taliban to open Qatar office; clears way for talks; Could revive efforts at reconciliation; group also wants prisoners freed" by Matthew Rosenberg | New York Times, January 04, 2012
KABUL - The opening of an office in Qatar is meant to give Afghan and Western peace negotiators an address where they can openly contact legitimate Taliban intermediaries. That would open the way for confidence-building measures that Washington hopes to push forward in the coming months. Chief among them, US officials said, is the possibility of transferring a number of “high-risk’’ detainees - including some with ties to Al Qaeda - to Afghan custody from Guantanamo Bay. The prisoners would then presumably be freed some time in the future.
The US officials said that another idea under consideration was the establishment of cease-fire zones within Afghanistan, although that prospect was more uncertain and distant. The officials asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks.
Some analysts are skeptical of the prospect for meaningful peace negotiations with the Taliban. The Taliban are viewed as unlikely to cede significant ground at a time when NATO has begun to withdraw troops and intends to end combat operations there in less than three years.
Another uncertainty is the role of Pakistan, which has undermined past efforts at reconciliation talks that it sees as jeopardizing its interests.
US officials have said for years that the war in Afghanistan would ultimately require a political solution, not a military one. The “surge’’ of additional troops ordered by President Obama at the end of 2009, and the sharp increase in kill-and-capture missions against the Taliban’s midlevel leadership by special operations forces over the past two years have largely been aimed at getting the Taliban to the negotiating table.
Yesterday, the White House affirmed the necessity of a negotiated solution. Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, said in an e-mail that “Afghan-led peace initiatives’’ were central to the US strategy of “denying Al Qaeda safe haven, reversing the Taliban’s momentum, and strengthening the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future.’’
The Taliban has momentum?
A truism of war, folks: those that seek peace talks are losing on the battlefield.
Though there were public hints of interest, Western officials in Kabul were questioning as recently as last month whether the Taliban were indeed ready or willing to talk. Yesterday’s announcement will help to erase those doubts, Western officials said, although they stressed that the process was closer to the beginning than the end and that there was no assurance that a final settlement could be reached.
Meaning there will be no deal. This is the same shit we have been reading for years, and I'm tired of it.
Said a Western diplomat in Kabul, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the talks: “This isn’t even close to having a done deal. That’s going to take years, if it even happens.’’
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"US in talks with Afghan insurgent representative" January 23, 2012|By Kathy Gannon
ISLAMABAD - Eager to accelerate peace moves, top-level US officials have held talks with a representative of an insurgent movement led by a former Afghan prime minister who has been branded a terrorist by Washington, a relative of the rebel leader says.
Dr. Ghairat Baheer, a representative and son-in-law of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said he has met separately with David Petraeus, former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who is now CIA director; US Ambassador Ryan Crocker; and US Marine General John Allen, the top commander in the country.
Related: CIA's Ace-in-the-Hole in Afghanistan
Yeah, we are talking to ourselves and still can't find peace.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!
Baheer, who was released in 2008 after six years in US detention at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, described his talks with US officials as nascent and exploratory.
Wow, he suffered six years of torture.
Yet, Baheer says the discussions show that the United States knows that in addition to getting the blessing of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar - a bitter rival of Hekmatyar even though both are fighting international troops - any peace deal would have to be supported by Hekmatyar, who has thousands of fighters and followers, primarily in the north and east.
Hekmatyar’s group, Hizb-i-Islami - which means Islamic party - has had ties to Al Qaeda but in 2010 floated a 15-point peace plan during informal meetings with the Afghan government in Kabul. At the time, however, US officials refused to see the party’s delegation.
“Hizb-i-Islami is a reality that no one can ignore,’’ Baheer said during an interview last week at his spacious home in a suburb of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.
In Washington, National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not confirm that such meetings took place but said the United States was maintaining “a range of contacts in support of an Afghan-led reconciliation process.’’
Yesterday, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, completed two days of meetings about the peace process with President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials. Grossman, who was to travel to Qatar today, urged the Taliban to issue a “clear statement’’ against international terrorism and affirm their commitment to the peace process “to end the armed conflict in Afghanistan.’’
US officials also have reached out to the Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network to test its interest in peace talks. Haqqani fighters, the second largest insurgent group after the Taliban, have been blamed for most of the high-profile attacks in the heart of the Afghan capital....
Related: Haqqani Ha-Ha
It's just not funny anymore.
I mean, do I look like I'm effin' laffin'?
On Saturday, Karzai said also he met recently with Hizb-i-Islami representatives....
Karzai’s announcement appeared intended to bolster his position as the key player in the search for peace....
Contacts with Hekmatyar’s group as well as parallel efforts to negotiate with the Taliban have taken on new urgency after the NATO decision to withdraw foreign combat forces, transfer security responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014, and bring an end to the unpopular war, which is increasingly seen as a drain on the financially strapped Western countries that provide most of the troops.
I see it as a massive war crime.
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"Hamid Karzai meets with cleric linked to Taliban; Asks for help to get insurgents into negotiations" by Asif Shahzad | Associated Press February 19, 2012
ISLAMABAD - The Afghan president met yesterday with a Pakistani cleric linked to Taliban insurgents, a meeting that marked the first public contact between an Afghan official and members of the Afghan Taliban’s support network in Pakistan in Afghanistan’s bid to bring the militant movement to the negotiating table.
The meeting between President Hamid Karzai and the cleric was held in Islamabad, according to the cleric and Afghan officials, and shows how far Karzai is willing to go for contact with the insurgent leaders.
Taliban leaders are widely thought to be based in Pakistan with some level of protection by the country’s security forces. The United States and Afghanistan increasingly see negotiating with the Taliban as the only way to end more than a decade of warfare in Afghanistan and allow American troops to leave the country without it falling further into chaos.
The cleric, Maulana Samiul Haq, runs a large seminary where many of the insurgent leaders once studied and reportedly still provides recruits for the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan. He is known in some circles as the “Father of the Taliban,’’ but it is unclear how much sway he has currently with the movement.
Karzai met Haq in an Islamabad hotel, not his seminary closer to the Afghan border where he regularly preaches the virtues of jihad in Afghanistan to thousands of students.
Karzai’s trip reinforces the centrality of Pakistan to the peace process.
Pakistan is viewed as key because much of the Taliban leadership is thought to be based in the country, and the government has historical ties with the group. But Islamabad has always denied Taliban leaders are using its territory and rejected allegations that the Pakistani government has maintained its connections to the group, frustrating Afghan and American officials who have said Pakistan is not aggressively going after the terror group.
Pakistan sees the Afghan Taliban as its allies against the influence of its regional enemy, India, and is believed to be trying to use its influence with the group to limit India’s future power in Afghanistan.
Karzai met Thursday and Friday with Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders to ask for their help in bringing the Taliban leadership to the table and ending the conflict that has wracked his country for years.
But there was little sign of progress....
Since its inception, the peace process has been beset by false hopes, mistrust, and the competing interests of the main players: Afghanistan, the United States, the Afghan Taliban, and Pakistan.
Afghan and Pakistani officials have complained about being sidelined in the peace process after the Taliban said they were opening an office in Qatar and were talking to the Americans. Publicly, the Afghan Taliban says it will not talk to Karzai, who they maintain is an illegitimate “puppet leader.’’
During Karzai’s three-day trip to Pakistan, he held meetings with political and religious figures in an attempt to push forward the peace process.
An aide to another hardline Islamist cleric, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, also said he met yesterday with the Afghan leader.
Karzai also met a delegation of a pro-Taliban Pakistani political party, Jamiat Ulema Pakistan. The party’s seminaries in Pakistan recruited and trained Taliban militants who fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan....
That is when they were freedom fighters and not "CIA-Duh."
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"Militant faction breaks off talks with US, Afghans; Says informal discussions will continue" by Deb Riechmann | Associated Press, March 29, 2012
KABUL — A major Afghan militant group is following in the Taliban’s footsteps by suspending talks with the United States and the Kabul government, another setback to efforts toward a peaceful resolution to the decadelong war.
I've got a way to find a peaceful resolution. TURN AROUND and F***ING LEAVE!
The insurgent faction Hezb-i-Islami was abandoning talks because they had produced nothing “practical,’’ said the group’s European representative, Qaribur Rahman Saeed. Earlier this month, the Taliban announced it was breaking off dialogue with the United States.
Part of the US-led coalition’s exit plan is to gradually transfer security responsibility to Afghan forces.
The guys increasingly turning on foreign troops? I think the message is GET OUT!
Another tack is to pull the Taliban and other militant factions into political discussions with the Afghan government.
He just setback peace talks, 'eh?
The United States and Afghan governments know that in addition to getting the blessing of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, any peace deal would have to be supported by Hekmatyar, who has thousands of fighters and followers primarily in the north and east. Mullah Omar is a bitter rival of Hekmatyar even though both are fighting international troops....
The Taliban said they were suspending talks with the United States. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid accused the United States of failing to follow through on its promises.
Mujahid said they had agreed to discuss two issues only with the Americans: the establishment of the militant group’s political office in Qatar and a prisoner exchange. The Taliban are seeking the release of five top Taliban leaders from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
The Taliban said the Americans initially agreed to take practical steps on these issues, but then came up with new conditions for the talks....
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