US resumes talks with Taliban in Doha

Yahoo – AFP, December 7, 2019

US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has in recent weeks made a whistle-stop tour of countries
with a stake in Afghan peace, including Pakistan (AFP Photo/KARIM JAAFAR)

Doha (AFP) - Washington resumed talks with the Taliban in Qatar Saturday, both sides said, three months after President Donald Trump abruptly halted diplomatic efforts that could end America's longest war.

In September, the United States and the Taliban had appeared on the verge of signing a deal that would have seen Washington begin withdrawing thousands of troops in return for security guarantees.

It was also expected to pave the way towards direct talks between the Taliban and the government in Kabul and, ultimately, a possible peace agreement after more than 18 years of war.

But that same month, Trump abruptly called the year-long effort "dead" and withdrew an invitation to the insurgents to join secret talks at his US retreat at Camp David after the killing of an American soldier.

"The US rejoined talks today in Doha. The focus of discussion will be reduction of violence that leads to intra-Afghan negotiations and a ceasefire," said the US source briefed on efforts to end almost two decades of war in Afghanistan.

The Taliban spokesman in Qatar, Suhail Shaheen, confirmed the talks on his Twitter account, saying they had resumed "from where they were broken off".

"Talks revolved around the signing of an agreement and related issues," he wrote.

"Negotiations will resume tomorrow."

Anas Haqqani, brother to the Taliban's deputy leader, participated in the talks, Shaheen confirmed.

A halt to Taliban attacks is the key priority for Kabul in the resumed talks 

between Washington and the insurgents (AFP Photo/WAKIL KOHSAR)

Haqqani was released from Afghan government custody last month as part of a prisoner swap that saw an American academic and his Australian colleague freed.

During a surprise visit to a US military base in Afghanistan last week, Trump said the Taliban "wants to make a deal."

Even during the stall in talks, US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad has in recent weeks made a whistle-stop tour of nations with a stake in Afghan peace, including Pakistan.

Thorny issues

He recently arranged a captive swap in which the Taliban released an American and an Australian academic whom they had held hostage for three years.

The Taliban have until now refused to negotiate with the Afghan government, which they consider an illegitimate regime.

In a nod to concerns raised by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the US State Department voiced support for a ceasefire -- a key priority for Kabul before it enters negotiations with the Islamist insurgents.

"Ambassador Khalilzad will rejoin talks with the Taliban to discuss steps that could lead to intra-Afghan negotiations and a peaceful settlement of the war, specifically a reduction in violence that leads to a ceasefire," the State Department said on Wednesday as it announced the resumption of efforts to end the conflict.

Washington had sought to seal a political deal with the Taliban ahead of September's elections in Afghanistan.

An agreement with the Taliban is expected to have two main pillars -- a US withdrawal from Afghanistan and a commitment by the militants not to offer sanctuary to jihadists.

The Taliban's relationship with Al-Qaeda was the main reason for the US invasion nearly 18 years ago.

But the thorny issues of power-sharing with the Taliban, the role of regional powers including Pakistan and India, and the fate of Ghani's administration remain unresolved.

The Taliban, believing they have the upper hand in the war, kept up attacks even while talking to the United States.

Moscow holds Taliban talks

Yahoo – AFP, September 15, 2019

Afghan National Army soldiers stand guard and inspect the site of a suicide
car bomb attack by the Taliban in Char Asiab district, south of Kabul, on
September 12 (AFP Photo/STR)

A Taliban delegation held talks with Russian officials in Moscow after US negotiations with the Afghan insurgents collapsed, the Russian foreign ministry said Saturday.

"The Russian president's special representative for Afghanistan... Zamir Kabulov, hosted a Taliban delegation in Moscow," a ministry spokesman said, quoted by RIA Novosti state-funded news agency.

No date for the talks was given.

"The Russian side stressed the need to relaunch negotiations between the United States and the Taliban movement," the spokesman said.

"For their part, the Taliban confirmed their willingness to pursue dialogue with Washington," he added.

Until a week ago expectation had steadily mounted of a US-Taliban deal that would see the US drawdown of troop levels in Afghanistan and the Taliban offer security guarantees to keep extremist groups out.

But last week, Trump revealed he had cancelled an unprecedented meeting between the Taliban and himself in the United States and declared the talks with the militants "dead".

In a tweet on Saturday, Trump said: "The Taliban has never been hit harder than it is being hit right now. Killing 12 people, including one great American soldier, was not a good idea. There are much better ways to set up a negotiation. The Taliban knows they made a big mistake, and they have no idea how to recover!"

With more than 13,000 US troops still in Afghanistan, Trump has been eager to end America's longest war, launched 18 years ago after the September 11 attacks.

But fears are now growing of increased violence with presidential elections set for September 28 in Afghanistan.

The vote, the fourth since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has already been delayed twice this year.

Government forces and Taliban have been engaged in heavy exchanges across the nation, with the militants vowing to continue fighting and make the US regret walking away from talks.

Russia has been trying to influence the peace negotiations and staged two meetings in Moscow with Afghan political leaders at the start of the year.

Iran says Afghan Taliban were in Tehran for peace talks

Yahoo – AFP, December 31, 2018

The scene of a car bomb attack in Kabul on January 27, 2018, which was
claimed by the Taliban (AFP Photo/WAKIL KOHSAR)

Tehran (AFP) - Iran said Monday that the Afghan Taliban have visited Tehran for a second round of peace talks in just a few days aimed at bringing an end to 17 years of conflict.

Iran has made a more concerted and open push for peace in neighbouring Afghanistan since US President Donald Trump indicated there would be a significant withdrawal of American troops.

"Yesterday (Sunday), a delegation of Taliban were in Tehran and lengthy negotiations were held with Iran's deputy foreign minister... (Abbas) Araghchi," said spokesman Bahram Ghasemi at a televised news conference.

That came just days after Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, visited Kabul and told reporters that talks had been held with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

"The Islamic Republic has always been one of the primary pillars of stability in the region and cooperation between the two countries will certainly help in fixing Afghanistan's security issues of today," Shamkhani told the conservative Tasnim news agency.

There have been reports in the past of talks between Iran and the Taliban, but they have typically been denied by Tehran.

Ghasemi said Iran's priority was "to help facilitate negotiations between Afghan groups and the country's government".

The current peace push will be viewed with concern by hawks in Washington, who fear that Trump's planned withdrawal of troops from Syria and Afghanistan will cede regional influence to Iran.

An American official told AFP on December 21 that Trump had decided to pull out "roughly half" of the 14,000 US forces from Afghanistan, but the White House has yet to confirm the widely-publicised move.

Senior Republican senator Lindsey Graham met with Trump on Sunday and urged him to delay any withdrawal from Syria to make sure "Iran doesn't become the big winner of our leaving".

Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of US and international forces in Afghanistan, told ABC: "Iran has increased influence across the region now. If you pull American influence out, you're likely to have greater instability."

'Peace development'

The Taliban also met with the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the United Arab Emirates earlier in December, but refused to meet a delegation from Afghanistan.

Araghchi will travel to Afghanistan in the next two weeks, Iran's foreign ministry said, without giving further details.

"Considering our long border with Afghanistan and the cultural and historical ties, and our important role in the region's stability, the Islamic republic was interested... to enter and play a more important role in peace development in Afghanistan," Ghasemi added.

Iran and Afghanistan share a nearly 600-mile border, and have had a complex relationship in recent years.

Tehran has long supported its co-religionists in Afghanistan, the Shia Hazara minority, who were violently persecuted by the Taliban during its rule in the 1990s.

Iran worked alongside the United States and Western powers to help drive out the Taliban after the US-led invasion in 2001.

But there have been allegations, from Western and Afghan sources, that Iran's Revolutionary Guards have in recent years established ties with the Taliban aimed at driving out US forces from Afghanistan.

The Taliban, meanwhile, has made significant territorial gains this year as its fighters inflict record casualties on government forces.

Tehran welcomed Trump's announcement that he was withdrawing all US forces from Syria, but has not commented on the reduction in Afghanistan.

"The presence of American forces was from the very start, in principle, a wrong and illogical move and a primary cause of instability and insecurity in the region," foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said on Saturday.

Afghanistan sends team to join Taliban peace talks in UAE

Yahoo – AFP, 18 December 2018

The meetings between the US and the Taliban are the latest in a flurry of diplomatic
efforts as Washington seeks a way out of the conflict, which began with the US
invasion in 2001

An Afghan peace negotiations team has arrived in Abu Dhabi, an official said Tuesday, a day after talks attended by US and Taliban representatives were held in the city aimed at ending the 17-year conflict.

The team, led by chief negotiator Abdul Salam Rahimi, "arrived in Abu Dhabi to begin proximity dialogue with the Taliban delegation and to prepare for a face-to-face meeting between the two sides", the Afghan presidential spokesman Haroon Chakhansuri tweeted.

The 12-person team was first announced in November by President Ashraf Ghani as part of a diplomatic effort to bring the Taliban to the table for peace talks with the government in Kabul.

But the Taliban have not confirmed a meeting, and issued a statement on Monday reiterating their long-standing vow not to speak with Afghan officials.

In a new message released Tuesday the militants said they had held "preliminary talks" with the US State Department's special envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, on Monday, with the discussions to continue.

They also said they had held "extensive" meetings with officials from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and the UAE, repeating demands for international forces to be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan were the only three countries to recognise the Taliban government during its five-year rule from 1996-2001.

The US did not confirm direct meetings between Khalilzad and the Taliban in Abu Dhabi.

Late Monday Washington said meetings were ongoing in the UAE city "to promote an intra-Afghan dialogue toward ending the conflict", and that Khalilzad was in the region.

Khalilzad "has in the past met, and will continue to meet with all interested parties, including the Taliban, to support a negotiated settlement to the conflict", it continued.

The meetings are the latest in a flurry of diplomatic efforts as Washington seeks a way out of the conflict, which began with the US invasion in 2001.

Khalilzad, who has expressed hopes for a deal to be in place before Afghaninstan's presidential election scheduled for April next year, has made several trips to the region since his appointment in September.

On this trip the State Department said he is also visiting Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Qatar, and Belgium, where he tweeted that he had met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The international community has been optimistic about the possibility of talks.

"The possibility of a negotiated end to the conflict has never been more real in the past 17 years than it is now," the head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, told the UN Security Council in New York on Monday.

But the Taliban have upped assaults on Afghan forces even as the US increases diplomatic efforts, with thousands of people displaced by fighting.

Civilians continue to face "extreme levels of harm", a recent UN report said, with 8,050 people killed or wounded in the January to September period this year.

Taliban and Afghan officials hold 'reconciliation' talks in Qatar

Both sides in ongoing conflict seek to downplay any expectations of official negotiations or peace coming from Doha talks

The Guardian, Associated Press in Doha, Saturday 2 May 2015

An Afghan soldier guards a roadside in Kabul. The army has increased security
 after at least 33 deaths recently from Taliban attacks on military posts in the
north-east. Photograph: Hedayatullah Amid/EPA

Afghan and Taliban officials will hold two days of “reconciliation” talks in Qatar, the Gulf country’s state news agency has reported, although both sides have sought to downplay expectations from the meeting.

QNA did not identify the officials taking part in the talks, which it said began on Saturday, citing the foreign ministry official Yousif al-Sada.

“The dialogue will be through open discussions about the Afghan reconciliation between all parties in Afghanistan,” the agency said.

In a statement, the Taliban earlier identified eight people who would take part in the talks. However, they said the discussions “should not be misconstrued as peace or negotiation talks”.

“It is worth mentioning that all participants of this conference attend in an individual capacity, no one participates as representatives for any government or party,” the statement said. “Since this is a research conference, therefore, every participant gives their opinion on a range of issues.”

The Afghan presidential spokesman, Ajmal Abidy, said members of the country’s High Peace Council would attend the talks in Doha in their “personal capacity only”.

“They will meet face to face,” Abidy told the Associated Press. “Nothing is going on. We have no expectations.”

Previous efforts to launch peace talks have failed. In 2013, the Taliban opened an office in Qatar for the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, hoisting the same white flag flown during the Taliban’s five-year rule of Afghanistan that ended with the 2001 US-led invasion. The raising of the flag sparked immediate outrage from the then president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, and the US, derailing talks and eventually leading the Taliban to shutter the office.

While the office never officially opened, Qatar has become a place to open back-channel communication with the Taliban. Qatari intermediaries helped US officials negotiate the release of the captive US army’s Sgt Bowe Bergdahl last year, American officials have said.

The current Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who was elected last year, has pushed for peace talks with the Taliban.

US marines accused of war crimes

Video posted anonymously on YouTube claims to show American troops in Afghanistan urinating on dead bodies

The Guardian, Chris McGreal in Washington, Thursday 12 January 2012

This video allegedly shows US troops urinating on bodies of 

aliban fighters. Warning: graphic content 

US forces in Afghanistan are facing fresh accusations of war crimes after film emerged which appears to show American marines urinating on dead bodies and laughing.

The US military command in Kabul, which was severely embarrassed last year by revelations that Americans soldiers were running a "kill squad" murdering Afghan civilians, said it would investigate the undated video, and that if it proved to be authentic, desecration of corpses would be regarded as a serious crime. Despoiling of the dead is illegal under the Geneva conventions as well as under US military law.

In the graphic short video, four soldiers in combat gear and carrying weapons are seen acting in unison as they urinate on three bloodied corpses. One of the soldiers sighs with relief, another says "yeah" and a third laughs. One remarks: "Have a great day, buddy". Another says: "Golden, like a shower".

A fifth soldier films the incident.

The video was posted anonymously on Wednesday along with a caption that said: "scout sniper team 4 with 3rd battalion 2nd marines out of camp lejeune peeing on dead talibans".

Military officials confirmed that the soldiers appear to be carrying rifles of a kind issued to sniper teams in Afghanistan.

A US department of defence spokesman, Captain John Kirby, told CNN: "Regardless of the circumstances or who is in the video, this is egregious, disgusting behaviour. It's hideous. It turned my stomach."

The marine corps said in a statement: "While we have not yet verified the origin or authenticity of this video, the actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps. This matter will be fully investigated."

The promise of an investigation is unlikely to quiet concern at yet another revelation of abuses by American forces. Last year, 11 soldiers were convicted over the murders of three Afghan civilians by a "kill squad" and the subsequent cover up. It was revealed that some of them collected body parts, including fingers and skull parts, as trophies, and posed for photographs over the corpses of their victims.

The US military has also yet to live down the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the use of waterboarding and other torture of alleged terrorists held at Guantánamo.

The US marines corps is also under scrutiny after the trial began this week of one of its soldiers, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, charged with the deaths of 24 Iraqis during an attack in 2005.

Wuterich was commanding a group of soldiers who burst into the victims' homes in Haditha and shot women, children and men in their nightclothes. He is accused of manslaughter. Seven other soldiers also charged were either acquitted or had the case against them dropped.

A US congressman compared the killings in Haditha to the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

The Haditha killings contributed to the Iraqi government's refusal to agree to immunity for US troops after the formal withdrawal of American forces at the end of last year.`

Marines allegedly urinating on corpse

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Ex-CIA Agent: America creates its own enemies

"Healing the Military Energies in our family Tree" – Jun 13, 2011 (Kryon channelled by David Brown)

“ … There’s much violence and anger throughout the world; when we look at the Middle East, we can see that changes are coming there. The West has a lot of power over the Middle East, but that power will begin to dissolve. The Muslim people of this world will begin to have their own power, and their own prosperity, and they will begin to disconnect from the Western World. This disconnection doesn’t have to be violent as violence only happens when somebody hangs onto what doesn’t belong to them....

... What Military Energy means if we use an analogy: it would be like putting grinding paste into the oil of your motor car. Once you release these energies you will begin to feel lighter as you disconnect from this reality, and, you will find it easier and easier to release any other negative emotions. Military Energies are the core of all your problems...."

Hillary Clinton urges Taliban to abandon violence

BBC News, 2 May 2011

Death of Bin Laden

• Osama Bin Laden's death Live
• The raid: How it happened
• From obscurity to 'most-wanted'
• The long hunt for Bin Laden

Mrs Clinton said the US would continue
taking the war to al-Qaeda and its allies

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has urged the Taliban to reject violence and "rejoin society" following the death of Osama Bin Laden.

She said his demise proved the Taliban "cannot wait out or defeat the US".

Mrs Clinton said that while Bin Laden's death was a significant milestone, the "battle to stop al-Qaeda and its syndicate of terror" was not over.

She said the operation to find and kill him showed that the US would never abandon its pursuit of justice.

'Syndicate of terror'

"Our message to the Taliban remains the same, but today it may have even greater resonance: you cannot wait us out, you cannot defeat us, but you can make the choice to abandon al-Qaeda and participate in a peaceful political process," she said in brief remarks at the state department.

She said the operation to find and kill the al-Qaeda leader nearly a decade after the 9/11 attacks showed how determined the US was, and how it would continue to boost its counter-terrorism co-operation with other countries, including Pakistan.

Mrs Clinton said that al-Qaeda 'was
motivated by a violent ideology'

The battle to stop al-Qaeda and its "syndicate of terror" would not end with Bin Laden's death, Mrs Clinton added, insisting the US would continue taking the fight to al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies.

She said that she wanted to offer her thoughts and prayers to "the thousands of families whose loved-ones were killed in Osama Bin Laden's campaign of terror and violence".

Those attacks included embassy bombings in Africa, the strike on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 and the 9/11 strikes.

"These were not just attacks against Americans, although we suffered grievous losses. These were attacks against the whole world," Mrs Clinton said.

"In London and Madrid, Bali, Istanbul and many other places, innocent people - most of them Muslims - were targeted, in markets and mosques, in subway stations and on airplanes.

"Each attack was motivated by a violent ideology that holds no value for human life or regard for human dignity."

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Taliban in High-Level Talks with Afghanistan Government: Report

Jakarta Globe, October 06, 2010

Washington. The Taliban and the government of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai have begun high-level talks over a negotiated end to the war in the country, the Washington Post said late on Tuesday.

Citing unnamed Afghan and Arab sources, the Post said the talks are believed, for the first time, to involve representatives authorized by the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban group based in Pakistan, and Taliban leader Mohammad Omar.

“They are very, very serious about finding a way out,” a source close to the talks told the Post, referring to the Taliban.

Omar and other Taliban leaders on both sides of the border have insisted for years that no peace talks were possible before foreign fighters had left Afghanistan.

The negotiations involve agreements to allow Taliban leaders positions in the Afghan government and the withdrawal of United States and NATO forces, said the Post.

US General David Petraeus, the commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, said last week that the Taliban was approaching the Afghan government and foreign forces with “overtures” about quitting the fight.

“There have already been 20 or so overtures from small groups around the country,” he told AFP, referring to a program aimed at reintegrating mid-level Taliban commanders and grassroots fighters back into Afghan society.

A Taliban spokesman dismissed Petraeus’s comments as “completely baseless,” however, saying the insurgents would not “negotiate with foreign invaders or their puppet government.”

Petraeus also said NATO supported efforts by Karzai to open peace talks with the Taliban leadership, and in some cases had helped the process along.

“President Karzai has established very clear red lines for it, and in this case we support what it is the Afghan government is doing, and in some occasions facilitated as well,” Petraeus said.

Agence France-Presse

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Run on Afghan bank's deposits reported

NBC News: Large investor confirms funds were used to buy Dubai villas

NBC News, By Michael Isikoff, National investigative correspondent

WASHINGTON — About $155 million in deposits have been withdrawn from Afghanistan’s largest bank in just the last two days, spurring fresh concerns among U.S. and Afghan officials that a financial panic could spread through the country and derail the U.S. war effort, according to bank insiders and U.S. officials.

Kabul Bank Chairman Sherkhan Farnood, left, and CEO Khalilullah Ferozi listen during a news conference in Kabul on Wednesday. Afghanistan's Central Bank said the directors of one of the country's top private banks resigned to meet new regulations but denied it had taken over the bank following media allegations of corruption. (AHMAD MASOOD / Reuters)

Mahmood Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan’s president and one of the principal shareholders in the troubled Kabul Bank, told NBC News in a telephone interview that panicky depositors withdrew $70 million from the bank on Thursday. This is on top of an estimated $85 million taken out on Wednesday, he said.

Amid reports that Afghan government employees, including teachers, soldiers and policemen, were lining up outside Kabul Banch’s branches throughout the country to demand their money, Afghanistan’s Finance Ministry issued a statement Thursday declaring the bank was “reliable” and that deposits would be guaranteed.

But Karzai urged the U.S. government to take steps to calm the situation as well, saying continuing withdrawals could create a panic that might cause the bank to collapse and destroy Afghanistan’s fragile financial system.

“If this collapses, there will be a meltdown,” Karzai said.

According to him, the Kabul Bank had more than $1.3 billion in assets and about $500 million in cash on hand before the crisis began.

The prospect of a spreading financial crisis was triggered by new disclosures by Afghan officials and media reports this week that the Kabul Bank had allegedly violated the country’s banking laws by providing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to influential insiders, including Karzai and others with close ties to President Hamid Karzai’s government.

In addition, the bank’s chairman, Sherkhan Farnood, a world-class poker player who is known for flying around the world to play in card tournaments, acknowledged in an interview with NBC that the bank had invested more than $160 million of the bank’s assets to purchase luxury villas and two residential towers in Dubai. Most of the multimillion-dollar villas with swimming pools were acquired at Palm Jumeirah, a fabulously opulent man-made island that juts out into the Persian Gulf in the shape of a giant palm tree and has been dubbed by its developers “the eighth wonder of the world.”

An aerial view shows the Palm Jumeirah development in Dubai in December. Villas purchased in the development are part of the Afghanistan bank scandal. (MATTHIAS SEIFERT / Reuters)

Farnood and Mahmood Karzai both confirmed that the homes were acquired in Farnood’s name using bank funds and then turned over for the use of major bank shareholders, such as Karzai, who owns about 9 percent of the bank, and Haseen Fahim, the brother of Muhammed Fahim, Afghanistan’s first vice president. Asked why he put the bank-acquired homes in his own name, Farnood said: "It was easier" to do it that way.

U.S. officials have described the Palm Jumeirah properties as a galling symbol of the massive movement of capital out of Afghanistan by the country’s wealthy elite as well as the cronyism and corruption that plagues Karzai’s government.

A senior U.S. official in Kabul told NBC that in recent weeks, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of international forces in the country, and other U.S. officials had “forcefully” urged President Karzai to crack down on the bank.

After reviewing the bank’s activities, “we didn’t like what we saw,” said the official. In particular, the official said, U.S. officials — “and many Afghans” — were upset that the country’s assets, much of which has been derived from billions of dollars in western aid, were being taken out of the country and invested elsewhere.

The U.S. prodding apparently prompted President Karzai to direct Afghanistan’s Central Bank to move in and oust Farnood, the bank’s chairman, and Khalilullah Frozi, the bank’s chief executive officer, from their positions. The reports of the move, first reported by the Washington Post, triggered the run on deposits that has now threatened the bank.

U.S. officials, under the direction of David Cohen, assistant secretary of the treasury for counterterrorism, are closely monitoring the situation and have dispatched a team to assist officials of the Afghan Finance Ministry as they grapple with how to deal with fallout from the bank withdrawals,a Treasury Department official said Thursday.

"U.S. officials in Kabul are in close contact with the Central Bank Governor and are monitoring the situation. The Treasury Department recently sent a Quick Response Team to offer advice to the Central Bank and we will continue to work with Afghan authorities in support of their efforts to ensure a prompt and effective response," the official said in an email.

Mahmoud Karzai said he still has hopes the situation can be stabilized. So do U.S. officials: The Kabul bank is heavily used by the U.S. Embassy and by the Afghan government to pay the salaries of Afghan police officers and soldiers who are critical to the war effort.

Karzai, who lives in one of the Palm Jumeirah properties that he leases from the bank, defended his own activities, saying his business profits — which include investments in a cement company, restaurants and a major housing complex in Kandahar that had been financed with U.S.-backed loans — were being reinvested in Afghanistan. But he acknowleged that his luxurious Palm Jumeirah home had created public relations problems. “I’m going to move,” he said.

Mr Karzai has long advocated dialogue with insurgents who renounce violence

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Red Cross in Afghanistan gives Taliban first aid help

BBC News, 11:24 GMT, Wednesday, 26 May 2010 12:24 UK

Afghanistan is one of the ICRC's largest areas of operation

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says it has given first aid training to Taliban members in Afghanistan.

An ICRC statement said the organisation had provided basic training and first aid kits to about 70 members of the "armed opposition" last month.

The ICRC said that it had also provided training to civilians.

A spokesman said that the training had been going on for some time to ensure that everyone is treated humanely.

The spokesman said the ICRC's constitution stipulates that all parties harmed by warfare will be treated as fairly as possible.

He said that giving first aid training to armies and armed opposition groups was "routine" in other conflict areas of the world such as Sri Lanka.

Correspondents say that revelations that the ICRC is providing first aid training to the Taliban are not a surprise, but will nevertheless not go down well with many in the Afghan government.

A Nato spokesman in Kabul said that the alliance respects the humanitarian work carried out by the ICRC and recognises the need for this work to be carried out impartially.

The spokesman pointed out that Nato frequently provided first aid to injured Taliban fighters.

'Impartial organisation'

The ICRC spokesman denied that by giving first aid training to the Taliban - rather than merely treating injured insurgents - it was crossing an important dividing line.

The ICRC attaches great importance to its impartiality

"Our aim is to treat people when and where it matters most, irrespective of what side they are on," he said. "It is a fundamental part of our objectives.

"We treat and train people on the basis of medical necessity as an impartial organisation, regardless of race or politics."

In a report on Tuesday looking at the state of Afghanistan's health services, the ICRC said that "fighting, mines and road blocks" were preventing many people in the conflict-affected areas from getting to hospital.

"The armed conflict is taking a heavy toll on health services around the country. Even basic first aid is often lacking, let alone advanced war surgery. And when health care is available, it is not always easy to get it," it said.

Afghanistan is the ICRC's biggest operation worldwide. It has 140 international and 1,540 national staff based in its main delegation in Kabul and in five sub-delegations and 10 offices countrywide.

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Taliban arrests compromise UN talks

Radio Netherlands Worldwide, 19 March 2010 - 10:04am

Former UN envoy to Afghanistan Kai Einde (Photo: ANP)

The arrests of Taliban leaders in Pakistan last week have put an end to secret negotiations between the United Nations and the Taliban.

In an interview with the BBC, former UN envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide, said that communication channels had been cut off by the arrests. It was the first time the Norwegian diplomat had admitted that talks were being carried out with Taliban leaders.

He believes Pakistan is deliberately trying to compromise the negotiations. Pakistan denies this. Kai Eide resigned from the UN post earlier this month.

Karzai willing to talk to Taliban

The Jakarta Post, Associated Press, Kabul | Thu, 12/03/2009 10:18 PM

Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday that he's willing to talk with the Taliban chief in a bid to bring peace to the country if the move would have the backing of the United States and other international partners.

Karzai said in an interview with The Associated Press that "sections of the international community" had undermined previous peace overtures to the Taliban by harassing mediators "even though they had quit the insurgency." He did not offer specific examples.

It was Karzai's first interview since President Barack Obama announced a new strategy for the Afghan war, including 30,000 US reinforcements. Obama said in his Tuesday address that if all went well, the US could begin withdrawing troops in July 2011.

Karzai said Thursday that the target to begin troop withdrawals would give an "impetus and a boost" for Afghans to work toward taking control of their own nation.

"We must talk to the Taliban as an Afghan necessity. The fight against terrorism and extremism cannot be won by fighting alone," Karzai said, adding that he would be willing to talk with Taliban chief Mullah Omar.

"Personally, I would definitely talk to Mullah Omar," he added. "Whatever it takes to bring peace to Afghanistan, I, as the Afghan president, will do it. But I am also aware that it cannot be done by me alone without the backing of the international community."

Karzai offered to talk with Mullah Omar soon after the Taliban was ousted in the US-led invasion of 2001, but he backed off under US pressure. Since then he has offered to talk with Taliban members who were willing to quit the insurgency.

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