Petraeus Says Taliban Have Reached Out to Karzai

Petraeus Says Taliban Have Reached Out to Karzai
By ALISSA J. RUBIN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/world/asia/28afghan.html?_r=1&hp



KABUL, Afghanistan — The top American commander in Afghanistan said Monday that senior Taliban leaders had reached out to President Hamid Karzai in the context of early efforts to start reconciliation discussions that could pave the way to end the fighting in Afghanistan.

For months, efforts at reconciliation have been stalled at every level, and this is the first explicit public suggestion that there is extensive behind-the-scenes activity between insurgents and the Afghan government.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, in a meeting with reporters after a tour of the Detention Facility in Parwan, where American forces detain Afghans they suspect of supporting the insurgency, said there were efforts by Taliban to establish contact with senior members of the Afghan government.

“There are very high-level Taliban leaders who have sought to reach out to the highest levels of the Afghan government, and they have done that,” General Petraeus said.

“Now President Karzai’s conditions are very clear, very established, and, certainly, we support them as we did in Iraq, as the British did in Northern Ireland,” he said. “This is the way you end insurgencies.”

A spokesman for President Karzai confirmed that there had been contacts at every level, but he cautioned that they still could not be characterized as even the beginning of negotiations.

“In the last few months, there have been signs and signals from different levels of Afghan Taliban,” said Waheed Omer, the spokesman.

“There are signs that they are ready for talks, and this intensified after the president announced the program of reintegration and reconciliation after the peace jirga,” he said, referring to a June peace assembly, adding, “but no formal negotiations or discussions have begun.”

Mr. Omer said that Taliban members had made numerous efforts to reach out, and that once a High Peace Council is appointed, which President Karzai plans to do this week, the efforts would proceed.

“There have been different levels of contact — sometimes direct and sometimes indirect,” Mr. Omer said.

Similar outreach earlier this year by emissaries of President Karzai had stalled after the capture of senior Taliban leaders by Pakistan in February. On a parallel track are efforts to reintegrate lower-level Taliban into Afghan society. General Petraeus suggested that they were still at a very initial stage.

“We’re on the cusp of beginning, of supporting, the Afghan beginning of reintegration,” he said.