Posted on 06/18/2011 6:03:20 AM PDT by Cardhu
Afghan president's confirmation comes as Taliban launches deadly attacks in centre of capital, Kabul.
The president of Afghansitan has said his government and the US are negotiating with Taliban fighters to bring peace to the country.
While officials at the US embassy in Kabul could not be immediately reached for comment, Hamid Karzai's remarks were the first official confirmation of US involvement in the negotiations.
"Peace talks have started with [the Taliban] already and it is going well," Karzai said on Saturday in Kabul.
"Foreign militaries, especially the United States of America, are going ahead with these negotiations.''
Diplomats have already said there have been months of preliminary talks between the two sides, and Karzai, who is a strong advocate of peace talks, has long said Afghans are in contact with anti-government groups.
Karzai's disclosure came a day after the UN Security Council split the UN sanctions list for Taliban and al-Qaeda figures into two, which envoys said could help induce the Taliban into talks on a peace deal in Afghanistan.
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, earlier this year called on Taliban members to break ranks with al-Qaeda, renounce violence and accept the constitution so they can be reconciled to society.
Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, in Afghanistan's Helmand province, said [Barack] Obama was already on record saying that to effect a political solution it was necessary to talk to the Taliban.
"It's recognition that after ten years of war they [the US] haven't succeeded in getting rid of the Taliban, in fact they are still very influential in many parts of the country," he said.
"They are agreeing to have talks with an organisation that has just claimed responsibility for yet another suicide attack in Kabul, it's a very difficult choice that had to be made."
Multiple attacks
Shortly after Karzai's remarks on Saturday, gunfire was heard in the centre of Kabul, a witness told Reuters news agency, and an Afghan television station reported that a police station had been attacked.
Mohammad Zahir, head of crime investigation for Kabul police, told Tolo TV that two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a police station in the city's police district one.
Police said the attackers were wearing Afghan army uniforms and that the three gunmen as well as two policemen and one civilian were killed and four policemen and eight civilians were wounded in the attack.
Elsewhere, fighters attacked three convoys ferrying fuel and supplies to NATO troops stationed, killing nine Afghan security guards and torching at least 15 fuel tankers.
Two of the attacks on the supply convoys took place in eastern Ghazni province, where two roadside bombs killed four Afghan security guards, Mohammed Hussain, the provincial police chief, said.
Fighters also ambushed a NATO fuel convoy late on Friday along the border between Herat and Farah provinces in the west, killing five Afghan guards.
Substantial reduction
The US is on the verge of announcing a substantial reduction of troops from Afghanistan despite the continued attacks in the country.
Western officials in Kabul stress that attempts to set up contacts with the Taliban are at a very early stage and that efforts are still being made to achieve a communication channel with the Taliban's leadership.
Karzai last year set up the peace council featuring senior Afghan figures in a bid to pursue talks with the Taliban in return for them laying down their arms and accepting the constitution.
The Afghan government and the international community have set a number of pre-conditions for talks including that the Taliban accept the Afghan constitution, respect the values of democracy, renounce violence and break ties with their al-Qeada backers.
These pre-conditions have been rejected in public by the Taliban who are leading a bloody insurgency against foreign troops and Afghan forces.
So in the end the Taliban will again be in charge and our soldiers’ sacrifices will have been in vain?
Maybe Obomney will appoint Weiner Holder as ambassador to the Taliban...
I faill to understand. THe Talebans are declared recidivist enemies of America.
911, anyone?
This is proof Zero is now an AlQaeda supporter. He kills Bin Laden but supports Bin Laden’s policy, making indeed Bin Laden a martyred soldier in Islam.
Thus Obama has simply blessed BinLaden through his death. It was not an act of murder but a secret act of support, worship and legacy making of Bin Laden, akin to giving him a medal of honor in his fight for “Amerikanstan”.
Well if Romney has a say about it we are to give the “military over to the Taliban”....jerk said that but this might be truth in jest.
Yes. Talking to them is like p!ssin' into the wind. When Karzi first stepped onto the stage, I had high hopes but then he proved himself just like the rest of them. If he just stood up against the Taliban, we'd have been finished and gone home long ago and we would not have lost such so many of our loved ones.
Thanks Cardhu. No thanks, Zero.
My guess would be that the “negotiations” consist of some State Department libtard offering money and weapons to the Taliban, if they promise not to attack our retreating soldiers until after the jug-eared marxist is re-elected in November 2012.
Obama didn’t even want to kill Bin Laden. He was overridden, remember?
The killing of Osama Bin Laden was in fact a Coup within Obama WH.
Is he giving them Rose Park, Brooklyn?
I've been saying this for a while now and as a Nam Vet, this imbroglio and exercise if futility portends to have the same outcome as my little "Adventure" in the Far East back in the 60's; we never have, nor do we now, the intent, desire or will to prevail in Af-Gan and this is but the opening gambit of a Kissinger-like "Peace with Honor" (BARF) negotiated settlement whereby we will end up "Bugging Out" and leave those Af-Gans who were stoooppid enough to trust us and cooperated or assisted, to their own device.
As vengeful and cruel as were the No. Vietnamese after they conquered the South (THANKS ALL YOU CONGRESSIONAL DEMO-RATS AND WUSS, RINO, PRESIDENT FORD) they were/are controlled by ideology; these Barbaric Islamo-Fascist who answer to their Pagan Moon god and their psychotic, pederast "Profit" will exact revenge in a manner which will be devastating and typically, cruel.
It is time to bring em' ALL home and bring em' home NOW!
Not ONE more Military Warrior being sacrificed for a lost cause and Obummer's political aspirations!
Yep, from War on Terror we went to War of Contigence, and now War of Convenience for politics in Lybia, to now War on Peace on the side of Islamist gangsters of Chicago etc...
It’s called progressism, and Romney is one of those now.
Say it again, this is the last time I fight for liberals and BushJr. RINOs, calling Islam religion of Peace. THey can shove their "properness" and relationships up their arses. THey have to choose their sides.
As for me, I just went to have an opportunity to shoot at them legally and reasonably, in calculated manner of castration and disciplining the world, and that is about it, but as things go, I might end up being called a "War criminal" for cutting my own foreskin thus by the same liberals because I targeted what they believe is their friends in corruption and perversion, apparently.
The f@gs' war is upon us again, like in the 60s, throwing their genital warts at us because we are not sick in the head like them, or alternatively attempting to cure ourselves while they obviously cannot.
Most probably a coup indeed, as ultimately he too will have to be excised as a “martyred” Islamo canker in the White House, “hoping” that “change” will occure so he can one day get his own posthumous “all medals of honored canckers of history”.
It’s called canckered up power, a sort of wild growth taking from the pre-existing and turning it to rot... aka communism, abortion, homosexuality, islamofascism etc...
I completely agree. After ten years, it is definitely time to come home.
Oh goodie, lets sit down and compromise with the heathens that have been murdering Americans for the last 10 years./sarc
I feel horrible for every military family. I feel horrible for that place that used to be called America.
War! Does it not seem we are close to another world war? And no surprise the Islamic countries are at the heart of.....and now China and Russia proclaiming their cozy relationship with each other while tucking Iran in along side....
Iraq, Aphganistan, Yemen, Libya....And if Obama has his way we’ll be in Syria in no time flat. Any wonder it’s all muslim related?
Any body ever metioned Romney’s military service? I can’t remember. I’ll go check to see though, but if he’s had none that’s just another NO for Romney. I’ll never, ever vote for Romey under any conditions!
Ten years is hardly “quickly”. What do you want to accompish in Afghanistan?
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