Taliban reject peace talks with Karzai

KANDAHAR (Afghanistan)—Afghanistan’s Taliban rejected Sunday President Hamid Karzai’s new offer of peace talks, insisting foreign troops leave the country first, as violence continued unabated. Karzai made his offer on Saturday, hours after one of the worst attacks in the Taliban’s near six-year insurgency killed 30 people in the capital.
It was flatly turned down, as was an offer of government posts if the rebels renounced violence. They said they would “never talk” unless the tens of thousands of international troops here leave. “Taliban are not interested in government posts — ministries or anything. We want the withdrawal of foreign forces and we stand by our position,” Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said, echoing a demand made two weeks ago.
“As long as they have not withdrawn, we’ll never talk with the Kabul administration.” Despite the rejection, Karzai’s spokesman Homayun Hamidzada said Sunday that the government “knew” there was debate developing among some factions in the amorphous Taliban — although not the Al-Qaeda-linked ones — about talks. “Not all of them, not Al-Qaeda, but there’s serious debate among some Taliban groups,” he said. “We don’t expect something to happen now. This is a process which will take time.”
Karzai has already refused the Taliban demand that the nearly 50,000 foreign soldiers leave. He told reporters again Saturday, hours after the second-most deadly blast in the city since the Taliban fled in 2001, that he would not let them go before his war-ravaged nation stood on its own feet. “We won’t let the foreigners leave until our roads are built, our schools, electricity are built, until our police and army are better,” he said.
Besides military operations, the foreign soldiers are also helping to build the Afghan security forces, extend Kabul’s authority and facilitate reconstruction in a land ruined by war. Karzai is desperate to end the insurgency, which has claimed around 5,000 lives so far this year, most of them of rebels, compared with about 4,000 last year. The violence is undercutting costly efforts to rebuild and is eroding public confidence in an administration that has been supported by the world’s leading nations for nearly six years and is still faltering.
In new bloodshed, two Afghan women and a child were killed when Taliban attacked an Afghan army patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, Paktia province spokesman Din Mohammad Darvish told AFP. International soldiers were called to repel the attack. “Seven Taliban were killed in raids,” Darvish said.
The NATO force here announced Saturday that a foreign soldier was killed in the same area, but it would not confirm whether it was the same incident. Civilian casualties caused by international soldiers in Afghanistan are deeply sensitive, causing outrage inside and outside the country. About 300 civilians are estimated to have been killed in military action this year.
In another incident, two police officers were killed Sunday trying to defuse a bomb outside the troubled southern city of Kandahar, police said. Two more security officers were wounded, deputy police chief Abdul Hakim Angar told AFP at the site of the blast. An Afghan television journalist filming there was badly hurt. The Taliban launched their insurgency after regrouping following their ouster from government in late 2001 in a US-led invasion launched to capture their “respected guest” — Osama bin Laden — for the 9/11 attacks.
President Hamid Karzai’s office said Sunday that there is “serious debate” among some Taliban fighters about laying down arms, while a spokesman for the militants said they will “never” negotiate with Afghan authorities until foreign troops leave.
Clashes and airstrikes, meanwhile, killed 16 people, capping a week that saw more than 270 people die in insurgency-related violence. Karzai said Saturday he would be willing to meet personally with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and give militants a position in government in exchange for peace.—Agencies