with the Taliban had begun, although signals from various quarters
suggested back-channel contacts with the insurgency were gathering
momentum.
Renewed attention to the prospect of engaging the
Taliban leadership in negotiations comes against a backdrop of growing
violence, particularly in
Over a period of less than 48 hours on Monday and Tuesday, a series of bombings in and near
killed 13 people, as many as nine of them said to be children, and the
city’s deputy mayor and a former district leader were assassinated, all
in attacks blamed on the Taliban.
NATO, for its part, said Wednesday it had killed the Taliban “shadow governor” of Faryab, a northern
Karzai denounced the
But such condemnations often go hand in hand with pleas for insurgents to come to the bargaining table.
In an emotional speech last week, shortly after a
deadly attack on a provincial deputy governor, the Afghan leader
referred to Taliban fighters as “compatriots,” urging them to renounce
violence.
With the war entering its 10th year on Thursday, reports this week by the pan-Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera and
cited Afghan and Arab sources as saying that Taliban representatives —
with the apparent blessing of the movement’s supreme leader, Mullah
Mohammed Omar — had embarked on talks with the Karzai government.
Karzai’s deputy spokesman,
said Wednesday there were “no contacts on the high levels” between the
government and the Taliban but acknowledged that indirect lower-level
talks had been taking place. The president last week named a 70-member
“peace council” tasked with overseeing any formal negotiations.
government during the movement’s five-year reign, expressed doubts that
Omar had yet authorized anyone to speak for him directly.
“As far as I know, there is nobody who can
represent” Omar, he said. “For a long time now, there have been these
kinds of talks and contacts.”
Mojdeh, who is generally seen as familiar with the
thinking of the Taliban leadership, says any substantive talks would be
covert and that the peace council Karzai had named is likely “for show.”
Senior Western officials have spoken openly in
recent days about preliminary overtures to the insurgents by Karzai’s
government and vice versa.
Mark Sedwill, the senior civilian NATO representative, said at a news conference in
told reporters last week that “very high-level Taliban leaders … have
sought to reach out to the highest levels of the Afghan government.”
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