Taliban in Secret talks with Karzai government

“They are very, very serious about finding a way out,” one source close to the talks said of the Taliban.

Although Omar’s representatives have long publicly insisted that negotiations were impossible until all foreign troops withdraw, a position seemingly buoyed by the Taliban’s resilience on the battlefield, sources said the Quetta Shura has begun to talk about a comprehensive agreement that would include participation of some Taliban figures in the government and the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops on an agreed timeline.

The leadership knows “that they are going to be sidelined,” the source said. “They know that more radical elements are being promoted within their rank and file outside their control. . . . All these things are making them absolutely sure that, regardless of [their success in] the war, they are not in a winning position.”

Karzai’s spokesman, Waheed Omer, said Wednesday that “negotiations, in a substantial way, have never happened.”

“There have been contacts, initiated sometimes by the Taliban themselves, at different levels,” he said. But, he added, the exchange “remains at the level of contacts, because negotiations is a term that involves people talking about their conditions, different things related to a settlement.”

On Thursday, Karzai will inaugurate the first meeting of the government’s new “high peace council,” a group of about 70 Afghans that is intended to form policy on how to pursue negotiations with the Taliban. Omer said there will be “no backdoor negotiations” outside the work of this group because “we do not want to undermine the high peace council.”

A half-dozen sources directly involved in or on the margins of the secret talks agreed to discuss them on the condition of anonymity. All emphasized their preliminary nature, even as they differed on how specific they have been. All expressed concern that any public description of the meetings would undercut them.
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