Karzai reviews Taliban peace strategy

Karzai expected to announce a new strategy for peace efforts in a televised address "very soon": Spokesperson.


Afp October 02, 2011

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reviewing his strategy for making peace with the Taliban after his top peace envoy was murdered, a spokesman said on Sunday, as officials said the killer was a Pakistani.

Karzai's pointman on Taliban talks, High Peace Council chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani, was assassinated last month by a turban bomber who had purported to be a peace emissary from the insurgents.

A statement released by Karzai's presidential palace Sunday said new evidence showed that Rabbani's killer was "a citizen of Pakistan".

Many Afghans are suspicious of Pakistan's connections to the Taliban-led insurgency in their country but the statement was the strongest yet to suggest a Pakistani link to Rabbani's killing.

Karzai spoke Friday of the need for discussions with Pakistan to bring peace and of his frustration at the failure of talks to establish contact with senior Afghan Taliban chiefs such as supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Evidence shows that Rabbani's death on September 20 "was plotted in Quetta and the person who carried out the suicide attack was a citizen of Pakistan," the statement said, quoting an official investigation team.

Afghan officials have already said that Rabbani's murder was planned by the Afghan Taliban's leadership body, the Quetta Shura, in Pakistan. But the militant group has not claimed responsibility for the killing.

The claims came hours after a spokesman for Karzai, Siamak Herawi, said the president was reviewing his strategy for peace with the Taliban in the wake of Rabbani's killing.

No substantive peace talks have yet taken place between the Afghan government and the Taliban, leaders of a 10-year insurgency which has led to 140,000 foreign troops being stationed in Afghanistan.

"All peace talks with the Taliban are suspended. The president will review the peace and reconciliation strategy," Herawi told AFP.

The spokesman said Karzai was expected to announce a new strategy for peace efforts in a televised address "very soon".

The Taliban have long rejected Karzai's calls for peace talks, saying they will not hold any discussions until all foreign troops leave the country.

His death dealt perhaps the heaviest blow yet to Karzai's hopes of securing reconciliation with the Taliban.

Karzai spoke of his frustrations over the process at a meeting with Islamic clerics Friday, where he also stressed the importance of negotiating with Pakistan in a bid to end the war.

"Mullah Omar doesn't have an address... their peace emissary turns out to be a killer, whom should we talk to?" Karzai asked the clerics.

"The Afghan nation asks me who's the other party that you hold talks with? My answer is, Pakistan."

"The only solution, which is also the demand of all people, is that talks be held with the Pakistani side, since all the sanctuaries and safe havens of the opposition are located in that country," he added.

Karzai has long stressed that the roots of the insurgency are in Pakistan.

Afghanistan's Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi has linked Pakistan's intelligence agency -- elements of which are suspected to have links with the Afghan insurgency -- to the killing.

The United States is also stepping up pressure on Pakistan to take action against the Taliban-allied Haqqani network insurgent group in particular.

On Saturday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said it had captured Haji Mali Khan, a senior Haqqani commander who is also the uncle of its leader Sirajuddin Haqqani.

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