Karzai in secret talks with Afghan Taliban: report

[Devil Soul]

Karzai in secret talks with Afghan Taliban: report
REUTERS
Published 2014-02-04 14:16:12
KABUL: Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has been holding secret talks with Taliban officials in the hope of persuading them to make peace with his government, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed Afghan and Western officials.

Karzai's spokesman could not reached for comment. But the Times, in its report, said the spokesman had confirmed contact had been made and described the past two months as positive.

Officials, however, told the paper the Taliban-initiated talks had been fruitless so far, although they may help explain Karzai's mounting public hostility to Washington.

In November — around the same time the secret talks reportedly began — Karzai announced his intention to avoid signing a bilateral security deal with the United States until after a presidential election in April.

Karzai has served two terms and cannot run again.

President Barack Obama, frustrated by Karzai's refusal to sign the accord, was due to meet top commanders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the future of the US mission in Afghanistan.

Relations have deteriorated sharply over Karzai's refusal to sign, sapping already scant support for the war in Washington, which has halved aid for civilian assistance in the fiscal year 2014.

Washington has signalled it could pull all troops out after 2014, unless a deal is signed soon. This would leave Afghanistan's fledgling security forces to fight the Taliban insurgency alone and diplomats fear they would struggle to cope without US financial and military support.

The Taliban have vowed to derail the April 5 election and the recent spike in violence in the capital suggests secret talks with Karzai have made little difference over their stated intention to step up attacks.

Monthly incidents in January were at the highest since 2008, according to security officials, and the trend has continued into February, with two bombs going off in Kabul on Monday

 

[Infoman]

It's not a secret when it is reported on the news or Internet .

 

[nangyale]

Yeah, not a secret now.
But had been a secret from the time it started to the time this or other reports were made.

It's not a secret when it is reported on the news or Internet .

 

[nangyale]

Hamid Karzai 'has been talking to Taliban for months'
Clandestine contacts could explain worsening relationship with US but do not seem to have yielded any results

• Emma Graham-Harrison
• theguardian.com, Tuesday 4 February 2014

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused the US of being behind insurgent attacks and has angered America with the release of Taliban prisoners. Photograph: S Sabawoon/EPA

Afghan president Hamid Karzai has been talking to the Taliban for several months in an attempt to broker a last-minute peace deal before his term expires, the New York Times reports, citing Afghan and western officials.

If confirmed, the clandestine contacts could explain his hardening stance towards Washington in recent weeks, which has further soured an already difficult relationship.

The talks began with a Taliban outreach last November, just as Washington believed a difficult deal for a long-term US military presence in Afghanistan was about to be signed.

Instead, after a national gathering convened to discuss the bilateral strategic agreement endorsed it, Karzai surprised allies and much of his own cabinet by rolling out a new list of conditions.

The deal is still unsigned, and billions of dollars in military and civilian aid linked to it are also in limbo.

Since then, relations have deteriorated further with the revelation that the president suspects the US is behind many insurgent-style attacks, including a recent suicide assault on a Kabul restaurant that killed prominent members of the international community and two US citizens.

He has also ordered the release of dozens of prisoners considered by the US to be dangerous Taliban fighters, but his palace insists are innocent men locked up by the US under false pretences.

Afghanistan will vote for a new president in April but the two-round system and delays getting ballot papers from across the country could mean that Karzai will remain in post for several months after.

The contacts with the Taliban do not appear to have yielded any concrete results, the New York Times reported, with neither actual talks nor firm plans for any on the table.

A presidential spokesman confirmed the talks, which he described as among the most serious of the last decade.

"These parties were encouraged by the president's stance on the bilateral security agreement and his speeches afterwards," Aimal Faizi told the paper. "The last two months have been very positive."

He was not available for comment on Tuesday.

There were meetings with influential leaders in Dubai and Riyadh, the report said, but contacts had "fizzled out" and the group had no plans of negotiating with the Afghan government, if they ever did.

The Taliban have long said getting rid of foreign troops is one of their main objectives, and if their links with Karzai contributed to slow progress on the long-term partnership deal with the US, it could potentially be part of a military strategy.

Although the Taliban maintained unofficial contacts with some senior Afghans over the decade since they were toppled, efforts to broker peace talks to end the conflict through negotiations have been tortuous and so far yielded little more than set-backs and dead ends.