Hamid Karzai in drive for peace talks with Taleban

Published on Saturday 4 September 2010 15:31

AFGHAN president Hamid Karzai has set up a council to seek peace talks with the Taleban.

• Hamid Karzai seeks peace talks with the Taleban

Karzai said he would pursue reconciliation talks with insurgents willing to renounce violence, honour the Afghan constitution and sever ties with terrorist networks.

Karzai's office said yesterday that the formation of the High Peace Council was "a significant step towards peace talks". It is one of the most important moves Karzai has taken in his efforts to open a dialogue with the Taleban leadership.

International leaders have welcomed establishment of the panel, which was approved in June at a conference in Kabul, attended by community, tribal, religious and political leaders from across Afghanistan.

Karzai's office says the council will consist of former members of the Taleban, jihadi leaders, top figures and women.

The council was conceived as a negotiating body, to be made up of representatives of a broad section of Afghan society, to talk peace with the Taleban, which has been waging war since its regime was toppled in late 2001.

Officials met Karzai at his palace yesterday to finalise the list of members, who will be announced after the Eid holiday, which concludes on Friday. However, not all of Karzai's government has been supportive. Last week, the Afghan ambassador to the United States was ordered to resign after seven years in the post.

Although Said Jawad said he was not given any reason for why he must step down by 22 September, some analysts believe his outspoken opposition to talks with the Taleban may be the real reason for his sacking. Jawad said just last year that the only "engagement" with Taleban leaders should be military confrontation.

The Taleban has repeatedly spurned peace overtures, describing Karzai's government as a puppet of the US.

The announcement comes as the number of foreign troop casualties this year nears the 2009 toll of 485. Five US soldiers were killed in two incidents last Tuesday.

Yesterday, a suicide bomber perched on the back of a motorcycle killed seven people, including four Afghan policemen, in an attack in the increasingly violent northern province of Kunduz.

Sixteen other people were injured in the midday attack in the provincial capital, also called Kunduz. The city has been repeatedly attacked by the Taleban, in an apparent attempt to destabilise local authorities and spread the insurgency beyond its strongholds in the south.

The bombing came on the first anniversary of a Nato warplane attack on two fuel trucks just outside Kunduz city that killed as many as 142 people.

Analysis: Jerome Starkey in Kabul

PRESIDENT Hamid Karzai's new peace council isn't the first time Kabul has tried to talk to the Taleban. Previous efforts, though, have usually failed.

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one eyed leader of the Taleban, has repeatedly ignored Karzai's previous olive branches.

Karzai even said recently he was thinking of joining the Taleban, but the Taleban said it wouldn't have him.

His announcement yesterday was an attempt to honour the demands of an assembly he convened in June to approve contacts with the insurgents. It's first job will be to prove it is more than just another talking shop, or yet another excuse for Karzai's stooges to get their hands on more international cash.

He hasn't announced who will lead the new council or who will sit on it though he has promised to put women on board.

As ever, the real negotiations are shrouded in secrecy. Senior diplomats are already talking, with meetings between Afghan officials and the Taleban in Saudi Arabia, the Maldives and Dubai.

More recently a delegation of elders from Hezb-i-Islami, a militant group loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, travelled to Kabul to meet Karzai.

The insurgents want international forces to leave but distrust a government they see as corrupt.

The challenge for any negotiator, however, will be to keep Afghanistan's fractured society onside during the talks.