Afghan/Taliban Talks?

President Hamid Karzai made the offer through his brother Qayoun [right]
Photo: GETTY/EPA (Photo from The Telegraph)

Afghan President Offers Taliban A Role In Governing Country
-- The Telegraph

President Hamid Karzai has offered Taliban leaders the possibility of positions in his government if they agree to a peace deal which could bring fighting to an end.

The offer was made through his brother Qayoun at a secret meeting in Saudi Arabia of which Britain was aware.

Britain has been encouraging the Kabul government to talk to its Taliban enemies for more than two years and the Americans are thought to be coming round to the idea of a deal which would end the costly war in Afghanistan.

But The Sunday Telegraph has learned that the allies would insist that the Taliban would have to split with al-Qaeda and provide information on international terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan as the price of a deal.

Under the Saudi Arabian initiative more than a dozen former senior Taliban figures travelled to the kingdom with the approval of President Hamid Karzai's government.

The British Government has said little about the initiative in public but British military commanders and diplomats are known to favour talking to the Taliban as a way of ending the war.

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My Comment: Going through the motions .... the hope is that some elements of the Taliban will agree to the offer of talks from the Afghan Government. How many will cross over is yet to be known.