NATO soldiers board a helicopter after a security handover ceremony outside Kabul, June 18, 2013. (Omar Sobhan??
Perhaps channeling Winston Churchill's famous warning about "the end of the beginning," the White House on Tuesday announced plans for direct talks with Afghanistan's Taliban militia, but it cautioned against expecting any quick breakthrough that might speed the end of America's longest war.
Among the likely items on the agenda: the return of U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, held captive by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network since 2009.
U.S. and Taliban negotiators will hold formal talks "in a couple of days" in the Gulf state of Qatar, where the Taliban will officially open an office on Tuesday, U.S. officials said on a conference call with reporters. The negotiations are part of a diplomatic push to ease the American withdrawal by the end of 2014 and ensure the war-torn country does not serve as a springboard for attacks like the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes.
The White House announced the face-to-face negotiations even as Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai proclaimed that his war-torn country?s military and police had taken the lead from NATO forces. Karzai also announced the start of separate peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar while calling for them to move to Afghanistan as soon as possible.
"We need to be realistic. This is a new development, a potentially significant development. But peace is not at hand,? a senior administration official cautioned on the call, which was held on condition that none of the participants be named. The process of political reconciliation in Afghanistan "will certainly promise to be complex, long and messy," another top official said on the call.
In the U.S.-Taliban talks, Washington is likely to send James Dobbins, who took over May 10 as the State Department's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Officials on the call said they believed the Taliban negotiators would be "fully authorized" by the militia's leader, Mullah Omar, who has eluded capture since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001.
One of the officials said the Taliban would shortly release a statement saying ?that they oppose the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries and, second, that they support an Afghan peace process," as long sought by the United States. The first part of the statement is meant to indicate that they will break with al-Qaida, the official said.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups must also commit to ending their attacks and accept Afghanistan's constitution?including protections for women and minority rights, the official said.
While the negotiations are a good first step on the path to peace, "there's no guarantee that this will happen quickly, if at all," the first official underlined. "The core of this process is not going to be the U.S. Taliban talks. Those can help advance the process, but the core of it is going to be negotiations among Afghans, and the level of trust on both sides is extremely low, as one would expect. So it's going to be a long, hard process if indeed it advances significantly at all."
And even as the talks continue, American forces will not "let up" in helping their Afghan counterparts or battling insurgents, one of the officials stressed.
Asked whether possible prisoner exchanges might be discussed, another official replied: "Clearly, we do want to get our soldier, Sgt. Bergdahl, back. And I would expect that detainee exchanges would be an item on the U.S.-Taliban agenda."
Still, "the first meeting is likely to be just an exchange of agendas rather than any substantive, detailed discussion. We?ll tell them what we want to talk about; they?ll tell us what they want to talk about; and we?ll both then adjourn and consult on next steps, and then have another meeting in a week or two later," one official said.
U.S. officials have long complained about Pakistan's role in at least tolerating the flow of insurgents and weapons into Afghanistan. But "Pakistan has been genuinely supportive of a peace process for Afghanistan," one official said."There has in the past been skepticism about their support, but in recent months I think we've seen evidence that there is genuine support and that they've employed their influence such as it is to encourage the Taliban to engage and to engage in this particular format."
The officials declined to spell out in detail how the talks might affect the timetable for withdrawing America's roughly 60,000 troops. While U.S. and NATO combat forces are due to depart by the end of 2014, putting their Afghan counterparts solely in charge, President Barack Obama is expected to leave a residual force to help train the local military and police and carry out counterterrorism operations.
"The levels and nature of our presence are obviously going to be influenced, on the one hand, by levels of violence in Afghanistan and, on the other hand, by the presence or absence of international terrorists in or around Afghanistan," one official said. "To the extent the talks contribute to diminishing violence and eliminating international terrorists in and around Afghanistan, that will have an impact on decisions regarding our future presence."
According to the independent organization iCasualties, 2,238 Americans have died in Afghanistan, including 64 in 2013.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/u-resume-talks-taliban-days-white-house-150430725.html
miami heat Xbox 360 PlayStation 4 ign nba playoffs Chad Johnson engadget
No comments:
Post a Comment