2/16/2012

Afghan Government Joins US, Taliban Peace Talks, WSJ Reports



Πηγή: Tolonews
Feb 16 2012

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that his government, the Taliban and the US have entered three-way peace talks, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The Journal on Thursday quoted Karzai as saying that the Taliban are "definitively" interested in peace settlement to end the 10-year war in the country. He declined to provide more details about the location or the nature of the talks, saying it could jeopardise the process.

"People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban," the Journal quoted Karzai as saying in an interview. "They are also people like we all are. They have families, they have relatives, they have children, they are suffering a tough time."

President Karzai recently expressed concern that Afghanistan was being sidelined during talks between the US and the Taliban. However, he told the Journal during the interview conducted at the Arg Palace on Wednesday: "There have been contacts between the US government and the Taliban, there have been contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and there have been some contacts that we have made, all of us together, including the Taliban."

The Taliban has repeatedly said that it will not negotiate with the "puppet" government of Hamid Karzai. However, Mr Karzai rejected these statements and said his representatives have met with "the most senior members" of the Taliban.

Talks between the US and the Taliban resulted in an agreement to open a Taliban representative office in Qatar. Kabul has been keep informed about developments. It was recently reported that the Afghan government started secret talks with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia. The Taliban denied this.

In a recent exclusive interview with TOLOnews, President Karzai's National Security Advisor, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, said that Taliban are unpopular faces in Afghanistan, and that anyone who called Taliban leaders "heroes" was a traitor and an enemy of Afghanistan.

He also said that if the Afghan government tried to bring the Taliban into power, he would be ashamed to be a part of it.


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