KABUL: Afghanistan and Pakistan plan to open a second front in negotiations with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia as US-brokered talks get under way in Qatar, officials said on Sunday.
The Taliban, ousted from power by a US-led invasion in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, announced earlier this month that they planned to set up a political office in Qatar ahead of talks with Washington.
And Taliban negotiators have begun holding preliminary talks with US officials in the Gulf state on plans for negotiations aimed at ending the decade-long Afghan war, a former Taliban official said Sunday.
But Afghan and Taliban officials indicated in response to a BBC report about plans for talks in Saudi Arabia that both Kabul and Islamabad -- usually at loggerheads on the issue -- were looking for their own talks with the Taliban.
Asked for his response to the BBC report, Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai said: "Of course we support any steps towards the Afghan peace process." He refused to comment further.
But a senior Afghan government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP the BBC report was accurate, saying: "We will always pursue all roads towards peace in Afghanistan, including contacts with the Taliban that are not limited to the Qatar office."
A member of the Taliban's leadership council, the Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, also backed the report of talks in Saudi Arabia.
"The idea that the Taliban should have a point of contact in Saudi is pushed by the Pakistan and Afghan governments," he said on condition of anonymity.
"This is because they think they have been sidelined. They want some control over peace talks."
Supporting this theory, Kabul announced Sunday that Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar would visit Kabul on Wednesday, marking what Mosazai called a "new phase" in cooperation between the two countries.
Khar would meet President Hamid Karzai to "discuss the fight against terrorism and Pakistan's essential support to the peace process in Afghanistan", he said.
Khar's visit comes after the always touchy relations between the two countries broke down following the assassination of Kabul's chief peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September.
Karzai accused Pakistan of responsibility for the murder and said Islamabad was sabotaging all attempts at negotiations with the Taliban.
The president was wary over being sidelined in the Qatar talks, leading Washington to dispatch special envoy Marc Grossman to Kabul last week to assure him of a central role for his government in any major negotiations.
And in another effort to soothe Karzai's doubts, a delegation from the Qatar government is expected to visit Kabul to explain its role in the talks, High Peace Council secretary Aminundin Muzaffari told AFP.
Preliminary negotiations between the US and the Taliban are already under way in the Gulf state, a former Taliban official who is now a member of the Afghan government appointed High Peace Council said Sunday.
"The actual peace talks have not yet begun -- they are in the process of trust-building and obviously this will take some time," Mawlavi Qalamuddin, who once led the Taliban's feared religious police when they were in power, told AFP.
One of the trust-building measures demanded by the Taliban is the release of five of its members from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, while Washington wants the insurgents to renounce violence.
COMMENTS (14)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
It's time we must tell why all sort of leaders go to Saudi Arabia and U.S to sort things out. If they decide our fate then why we are blamed for terrorism and failed state stamp.
Any saudi that has been responsible for funding the pak taliban must be named and shamed
First US begged Taliban to hold talks and now it's Karzai's turn lol
US and Taliban....Now Joining Hands in Hands against Iran.....!
It's funny how it's always the ones favoring the side opposite to NATO are the ones who call it not winnable. That, or they just want NATO to lose because of who it is. It's like a cesspool of denied jealousy. Always being told they're the chosen people, yet at every turn they're sub-par. I wonder when the "if we say it enough times it will be true" mindset will be replaced with dealing with the obvious, real, problems.
So it is true....Talibans have support of Saudis, look what destruction they have caused in our country.....Sadis friends or Foe
Hamid Karzai has failed miserably as the first ever elected president of Afghanistan. Whether Karzai was handpicked, won through electoral fraud or contested a free and fair election is not the point here. His undoing was making alliances with warlords with blood on their hands, religious zealots and medieval thinkers, and presiding over the most corrupt period in Afghan history. He had the choice of laying the groundwork for a moderate and prosperous nation, one built on the foundations of a free and fair society and a country that utilises it's vast natural resources to create wealth for ordinary citizens. Shame on you, Karzai.
These people are the main cause of trouble in the Muslim world.
@Nikos Retsos:
Lol, son you should be on Pakistani TV with your own geopolitical show.
You seem like a specialist.
i just hope the Saudi's also talk about the usage of improvised explosive devices which have been creating a negative impact in the society.
@Nikos Retsos: sir i liked your comment and highly appreciate your understanding and awareness of afghanistan and afghanis, thank you for enlightening me on the subject. Kind regards: Bakir
@Nikos Retsos: Recognizing your expertise, knowledge & boldness can you also comment on the future role of Afghanistan in the Geo-political scenario we are experiencing, Professor! Wait! Let me buy some stocks before you do that.
The U.S. war in Afghanistan is unwinable, period! Now, both the U.S. and the Afghan government are scuttling to negotiate with Taliban on: a) The U.S. how to fashion a face-saving withdrawal that will mask a U.S. defeat in the war, and b) The Afghan government how to survive in power after the U.S. withdrawal - probably by bribing top Taliban commanders with $ billions from the stolen U.S. aid that it has stashed in Dubai, and by sharing power with them!
The Taliban have stated repeatedly that the U.S. forces must fully and unconditionally leave Afghanistan. The only left thing to negotiate with the U.S., therefore, is the speed of the U.S. withdrawal. The stated U.S. position, that the Taliban "must accept and respect the Afghan Constitution," something that Karzai also wants to negotiate because that will leave him in power, won't happen. For Taliban, the Holy Koran is "the only constitution!" The Taliban didn't fight for 10 years, and suffer thousands of casualties (their "martyrs"), to forfeit their right to keep calling their country "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" now that both of their enemies are in their throes and ready to throw in the towel.
The U.S. geopolitical plan to invade, occupy, and establish puppet and corrupt regimes in the East, Afghanistan, and in the West, Iraq, and then squeeze the sandwiched Iran in the middle hoping to overthrow the Mullahs has failed miserably. The U.S. has packed up and left Iraq, and now it is time to do the same in Afghanistan. The only thing that it needs now is a face-saving negotiated withdrawal that will spare the U.S. the stigma of defeat, and the demoralizing effect of another Vietnam Syndrome -the Afghan Syndrome. The Taliban leadership in Pakistan has already claimed that "the U.S. is fleeing Afghanistan, and that they were willing to help the U.S. [go]!"
The only thing, therefore, the Taliban would negotiate with the U.S. is: "An orderly U.S. withdrawal that will mask the U.S. defeat, and which will avoid a possible disorderly and panicky U.S. withdrawal as that in Vietnam in 1975). Karzai's survival is impossible, as his army will melt away or defect to Taliban.
The Graveyard of Empires seems to be on the way to score another victory after 10 years of valiant resistance. Thank to the Aesop fables, the "Slow and Steady Wins the Race" is about to come true for the Taliban! Nikos Retsos, retired professor
Yes! Take the battle back to where it started.