United States to meet Taliban to seek Afghan peace

United States to meet Taliban to seek Afghan peace Tue, Jun 18 13:58 PM EDT By Mark Felsenthal, Hamid Shalizi and Dylan Welch WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - The United States will meet the Taliban this week for talks aimed at achieving peace in Afghanistan, where the United States and the insurgents have fought a bloody and costly war for the past 12 years, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The Taliban opened an office in Doha, the Qatari capital, to help restart talks and said it wanted a political solution that would bring about a just government and end foreign occupation of Afghanistan. A senior U.S. official said the talks would start in Doha on Thursday, but President Barack Obama cautioned against expectations of quick progress, saying the peace process would not be easy or quick. U.S. officials say they hope this week's talks will pave the way for the first-ever official peace negotiations between the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban, which has waged a 12-year insurgency to oust Karzai's government and eject U.S.-led NATO troops from the country. U.S. officials said the process could take many years and be subject to reversals.

"This is an important first step towards reconciliation; although it's a very early step," Obama said after a G8 meeting in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. "We anticipate there will be a lot of bumps in the road." U.S. officials said that in the talks in Doha, the United States would stick to its insistence that the Taliban break ties with al Qaeda, end violence, and accept the Afghan constitution, including protection for women and minorities.

U.S. officials said it would be the first U.S. meeting with the Taliban in several years. It was expected to involve an exchange of agendas, followed by another meeting a week or two later to discuss next steps. A U.S. official said he expected the initial meeting would be followed within days by another between the Taliban and the High Peace Council, a structure set up by Karzai to represent Afghanistan in such talks. A senior Afghan official said the Taliban had held secret discussions with the Afghan government and were willing to consider talks involving the High Peace Council. The Taliban have until now said they would not countenance peace talks with the Karzai government, which they consider a stooge of the United States and other Western nations. In opening the Qatar office, the Taliban said it sought a political solution, but said no dates had been agreed for talks. "There are no scheduled dates," Tayeb Agha, a former chief of staff to the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, said in remarks carried live on al Jazeera television. Another Taliban representative, Mohammed Naeem, told a news conference at the opening of the Doha office that the Islamist group wanted good ties with foreign countries. "We want to keep good relations with all of the world countries, in particular with our neighboring countries," he said. "But the Islamic emirate (Taliban) sees the independence of the nation from the current occupation as a national and religious obligation." Tiny, gas-rich Qatar has been an enthusiastic supporter of reconciliation efforts in a number of political crises and wars affecting the Muslim world including those in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon and Darfur, often hosting peace talks on its own soil to try to prove it can punch above its weight in international diplomacy. 'NEED TO BE REALISTIC' The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the level of trust between the Afghan government and the Taliban was low, and played down expectations that the talks would quickly lead to peace. "We need to be realistic," said one official. "This is a new development, a potentially significant development. But peace is not at hand." News of the planned talks comes as the United States and its allies in NATO seek to meet a deadline of the end of next year for an end to foreign combat operations in Afghanistan. This would allow them to withdraw the majority of their troops and wind down an engagement launched after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. Obama said peace would only come through an Afghanistan-led process, and commended Karzai for taking a courageous step toward peace. He stressed that the U.S. military effort would continue in spite of the peace efforts.

"We don't anticipate this process will be easy or quick but we must pursue it in parallel with our military approach. And we in the meantime remain fully committed to our military efforts to defeat al Qaeda and to support the Afghan national security forces," Obama said.

Despite the accompanying words of caution, the announcement of the planned talks does represent a significant step forward in the peace process, which has struggled to achieve results despite years of attempts.

A team of envoys from the Taliban flew to Qatar in early 2012 to open talks with the U.S. government. But the Taliban suspended the talks in March 2012, saying Washington was giving mixed signals on the nascent Afghan reconciliation process. Karzai, speaking on Tuesday as the U.S.-led NATO coalition launched a final phase of security transfers to Afghan forces, said his government would send a team to Qatar, but said the talks should quickly be moved to Afghanistan. "We hope that our brothers the Taliban also understand that the process will move to our country soon," Karzai said.

U.S. officials said the goal was to ensure that Afghanistan does not remain a haven for terrorism and to defeat al Qaeda. "The one thing that we do believe is that any insurgent group, including the Taliban, is going to need to accept an Afghan constitution that renounces ties with al Qaeda, ends violence, and is committed to protection of women and minorities in the country," Obama said. The officials said the United States would want the Taliban to make clear its intention to sever ties with al Qaeda. "One of the things we will want to talk about from the very beginning is how they're going to cut ties with al Qaeda," an official said. "How quickly, exactly how they're going to do it, how quickly." A U.S. official said the talks would be conducted on the Taliban side by its political commission, with the authorization of Mullah Omar, and also represent the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network. James Dobbins, the new special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, will lead the U.S. side. The Haqqanis are considered the United States' deadliest foe in Afghanistan and the top U.S. and NATO commander in the country cast doubt on Tuesday over whether it could make peace. "All I've seen of the Haqqani would make it hard for me to believe they were reconcilable," U.S. General Joseph Dunford told Pentagon reporters by phone from Kabul. U.S. officials said they expected detainee exchanges to be discussed in the talks. The United States will ask for the safe return of U.S. Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, who has been a prisoner since June 2009, the officials said. He is thought to be being held by Taliban militants in northwestern Pakistan. (Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in Kabul, Saud Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Amena Bakr and Yara Bayoumy in Dubai, Jeff Mason in Enniskillen and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by David Brunnstrom; Editing by David Storey and Jim Loney) ====================== Taliban's Qatar office stokes Karzai's ire Afghan government is angry the Taliban raised their flag and vowed to continue fighting after opening their Doha centre. Ali M Latifi Last Modified: 21 Jun 2013 06:53 Kabul, Afghanistan - Standing at a podium with his image emblazoned on the wall behind him, Afghan President Hamid Karzai earnestly tried to earn the world's confidence in his government the day his military formally took over security from NATO. With NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen standing next to him, Karzai called June 18 "a great day where the Afghan people will see their own children providing protection to their lives and to their country". But events that transpired before and after Tuesday's press conference have brought the complicated web of Afghan policy to the world stage. Hours after Karzai spoke, the world's attention shifted to a press conference some 4,000 kilometres away, held by the other central party in the Afghan conflict, the Taliban. The highly orchestrated event marking the opening of a much-delayed Taliban political office in Doha, Qatar was the result of year-long negotiations between Washington and representatives of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban refers to itself. Statements made by Taliban officials Sohail Shaheen and Mullah Naeem - speaking in English and Pashto - immediately stoked the ire of the Karzai government, which also spent much of the last year trying to engage in direct talks with the group. Talks cancelled A day after the announcement, the Afghan government called off negotiations between Kabul and Washington on a bilateral security agreement. A statement released by the presidential palace said the suspension was in response to "the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the Peace Process". "The only purpose the Taliban's office in Doha ought to serve is as an address for holding their leaders accountable for their terror and attempts at denying ordinary Afghans a peaceful future." - Afghanistan 1400 group statement This "contradiction" was most evident in the black-and-white flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that hung behind the two Taliban representatives, a move an official involved in the negotiations told Al Jazeera came as a shock to Washington. "Until the last minute, the White House never cleared the Taliban to hang their flag," the official said, requesting anonymity because he wasn't authorised to speak to the press. Karzai had specifically raised the issue of the flag during a March meeting with the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, because it leads to the perception that "there are two states within the Afghan nation", said the official. Another contradiction at the Taliban's presser was a vow to continue fighting until a ceasefire is signed. Qasim Yar is a senior member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, the body tasked by the Karzai government to negotiate with the Taliban. He said what was said at the press conference came as a surprise. "When they enjoy the Qatari's assistance, financial, logistics - an office, a building, and political protection - and support of the US, and then from there they command that Afghan children be killed, women be killed, the elderly be killed … what does this mean? "It means that their terrorist attacks are under the protection of the Qatari government and the US government," Yar said. Initially optimistic about Afghan representatives being dispatched to Doha, the Karzai's attitude had abruptly changed by Wednesday. "As long as the peace process is not Afghan-led, the High Peace Council will not participate in the talks in Qatar," Karzai said. Unilateral decision The cessation of talks around the bilateral security agreement has further highlighted the tempestuous relationship between Afghanistan and the United States. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on June 18 [Reuters] Those familiar with the events that led to the political office's opening framed it as a unilateral decision borne out of US frustration with the Karzai government. Washington's decision was relayed to Karzai during a recent phone call between the Afghan president and John Kerry, the US secretary of state. "We can't keep waiting for you. Your government keeps saying they're in communication with the Taliban, but we have seen no progress", Waheed Mozhdah, a former official in the foreign ministry of the Taliban government, quoted Kerry as saying. Along with growing impatience towards the Afghan government, Mozhdah said Washington was compelled to talk by recent Taliban inroads with Iran and Lebanon. A June 4 statement issued by Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed a Taliban delegation headed by the chief of the political office had embarked on a three-day visit to Tehran to make "heard the voices and demands of [the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's] people and Mujahideen". The presence of heavy machinery in the western province of Herat "usually found in Lebanon" further worried the US, Mozhdah told Al Jazeera. Specific directives Long wary of the relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan, Mozhdah said the potential of a partnership with Iran - a country that, unlike Pakistan, the US has little leverage over. That "really frightened the United States", he said. Even though talks broke down last year officially, the CIA and Britain's MI6 intelligence service have been talking unofficially to the Taliban since then. The official involved in the negotiations said once the decision had been made by Washington to officially sanction the political office in the Qatari capital, the Taliban was given specific directives, including severing ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist network. From the perspective of one neighbourhood in Herat At the Doha press conference, the Taliban representatives said their "independent Islamic system" in Afghanistan "will [not] allow anyone to cause a threat to the security of countries from the soil of Afghanistan". That statement, said the official, "was the Taliban's way of saying they are distancing themselves from al-Qaeda, without having to say it outright". Further, those Taliban involved in negotiations must not return to the battlefield. "If the violence continues, there is no political gravitas," the official said. For the Taliban, adhering to US demands would pay dividends. "In the next few months, we will see four Taliban prisoners in Guantanamo handed over to Qatari authorities," he said, adding that issue had led to the original breakdown of official talks last year. The Taliban also stand to gain a security role in Afghanistan, the official said. However, speaking to Al Jazeera after the Doha press conference, Mohammad Sohail Shaheen said without a ceasefire, "[Taliban-led] attacking will continue in parallel with the peaceful talks for peace". That pledge was fulfilled only hours later when the group took responsibility for rocket attacks that killed four US soldiers near Bagram Air Base, 60 kilometres north of Kabul. Return to the past? The Taliban has shown little interest in speaking with the Karzai government. The Doha office was conceived as "an address only to negotiate with the US", Mozhdah said. The refusal of the Taliban to speak to Karzai and his government is both political and personal. Taliban officials cut the ribbon at the official opening ceremony of a Taliban Afghanistan Political Office [EPA] According to Daoud Sultanzoy, a former Afghan MP, a Taliban willingness to approach a government that is seen as "void of support in this country, it will be seen as contradictory to what they say they stand for". On a personal level, the official involved in negotiations the Taliban hates Karzai. As a Kanadahari Pashtun working with what the Taliban see as "occupying" forces, Karzai "is seen as a traitor", he told Al Jazeera. Mozhdah said the Taliban were actively trying to court the Afghan political opposition, with whom they are keen to negotiate. For many Afghans, especially young ones, any talks with the Taliban should come with caveats. Afghanistan 1400, a group that refers to itself as "a national movement of Afghanistan's new generation", warned the Doha political office should not be "perceived as any openness of the people of Afghanistan, in particular our new generation, to backtracking on the hard-won achievements of the past decade". "The only purpose the Taliban's office in Doha ought to serve is as an address for holding their leaders accountable for their terror and attempts at denying ordinary Afghans a peaceful future," the group said in a statement released on Wednesday. These statements were echoed by Pashtun Women Viewpoint, a London-based group whose members include female academics, activists, and writers. Heelai Noor, the group's co-founder, told Al Jazeera by excluding the Afghan government in the Doha negotiations, Qatar and the United States were "supporting a group, which was ironically deemed a terrorist organisation by the whole world until recently, over a legally elected democratic government in Afghanistan". ====================