US wants to revive stalled talks with Taliban

WASHINGTON: The Obama administration hopes to restore momentum in the spring to US talks with the Taliban that had reached a critical point before falling apart this month because of objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, according to the US and Afghan officials.

One goal of the renewed talks with the militants would be to identify ceasefire zones that could be used as a stepping stone towards a full peace agreement, a senior administration official said.

US officials from the State Department and White House plan to continue a series of secret meetings with Taliban representatives in Europe and the Persian Gulf region next year, assuming a small group of Taliban emissaries the US considers legitimate remains willing, according to two officials.

The US outreach to the Taliban this year had fits and starts but had progressed to the point that there was active discussion of two steps the Taliban sought as precursors to the negotiations, the senior US official said. (Talks are on an unofficial hiatus at Karzai`s request, according to the sources.)

Those trust-building measures were a Taliban headquarters office and the release from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of about five Afghan prisoners considered to be affiliated with the Taliban.

Those steps were to be matched by assurances from at least part of the Taliban leadership that the militants would cut ties withAl Qaeda, accept the elected civilian government of Afghanistan and bargain in good faith.

The Taliban office idea is seen as the most likely to regain traction next year, but it`s unclear when it might open. A political office in a neutral third country would be authorised to conduct talks on a peaceful end to the 10year war.

Mr Karzai remains opposed to the more difficult prisoner transfer plan, which is further complicated by new congressional restrictions on any prisoner transfers. T

he US tentatively had agreed to transfer a handful of Afghan prisoners to house arrest in a third country, probably Qatar, before the deal unravelled, US officials said.

The Associated Press has learned the identity of some of the proposed transferees, including Khairullah Khairkhwa, former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a former top Taliban military commander believed responsible for sectarian killings before the US invasion that toppled the Taliban government in 2001.

Karzai`s own advisers seeking peace with the Taliban had named those men among several Afghan Taliban prisoners it wanted released from Guantanamo as a goodwill gesture, but the Afghan president wants the prisoners to come to Afghanistan, not a third country, a senior Afghan official in the region said.

The US and Afghan officials also pointed to Mr Karzai`s longstanding unease with what he sees as a rush bythe US to broker deals ahead of the planned exit of US combat forces by 2015.

He has political problems at home, including newly resurgent militias, and the assassination of his chief peace negotiator in September has clouded his own outreach to the Taliban.

The US once swore off direct talks with the Taliban until the militants essentially were beaten but shifted position as the war dragged on in near stalemate.

Participants said they still considered a peace deal a long shot, and the militant leadership had shown no sign it wanted to stop fighting a guerrilla war.

The Associated Press is not identifying US officials involved in the direct talks in consideration of their safety.

One member of the Taliban negotiating team has been publicly identified as Tayyab Aga, an emissary of Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Other participants include a former Taliban ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a former Taliban deputy health minister, the senior Afghan official said.

The US goal is to midwife talks between the insurgents and the US-backed Afghan government led by Karzai, who frequently has felt sidelined by the US as it pursues talks with his enemies. He bills peace talks as an Afghanled process, which the US insists is also its goal.

The US outreach is meant to jump-start negotiations, US officials have said, but they acknowledge that their efforts can feed the perception that Karzai is not fully in charge.-AP

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