Iran Election Guide

Donate to EAWV





Or, click to learn more

Search

Tuesday
May172011

Afghanistan: Obama Administration "Has Accelerated Direct Talks with Taliban" (DeYoung)

Karen DeYoung writes for The Washington Post:

The administration has accelerated direct talks with the Taliban, initiated several months ago, that U.S. officials say they hope will enable President Obama to report progress toward a settlement of the Afghanistan war when he announces troop withdrawals in July.

A senior Afghan official said a U.S. representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, one as recently as “eight or nine days ago,” with a Taliban official considered close to Mohammad Omar, the group’s leader.

State Department spokesman Michael A. Hammer on Monday declined to comment on the Afghan official’s assertion, saying the United States had a “broad range of contacts across Afghanistan and the region, at many levels. . . . We’re not going to get into the details of those contacts.”

The talks have proceeded on several tracks, including through nongovernmental intermediaries and Arab and European governments. The Taliban has made clear its preference for direct negotiations with the Americans and has proposed establishing a formal political office, with Qatar under consideration as a venue, according to U.S. officials.

An attempt to open talks with the insurgent group failed late last year when an alleged Taliban leader, secretly flown by NATO to Kabul, turned out to be a fraud. “Nobody wants to do that again,” a senior Obama administration official said.

Other earlier meetings between Afghan government representatives and Taliban delegates faltered when the self-professed insurgents could not establish their bona fides as genuine representatives of the group’s leadership.

But the Obama administration is “getting more sure” that the contacts currently underway are with those who have a direct line to Omar and influence in the Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, or ruling council, he heads, according to one of several senior U.S. officials who discussed the closely held initiative only on the condition of anonymity.

The officials cautioned that the discussions were preliminary. But they said “exploratory” conversations, first reported in February by The New Yorker magazine, have advanced significantly in terms of the substance and the willingness of both sides to engage.

Read full article....

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

« Middle East: Obama Plans a Speech, But Little Prospect of Substance (Landler/Cooper) | Main | Syria, Libya (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Finding the Dead »

References (1)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.
  • Response
    Response: 璃瓦成型
    压瓦机|c型钢机| |止水板机天沟地槽机|角驰Ⅲ系列_颐和压瓦机械厂 http://www.czdxy 天沟地槽机 wj.com/ ...

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>