LAHORE: The Afghan government has been in reconciliation talks for months with members of a Taliban faction closely tied to the Al Qaeda and responsible for lethal attacks on coalition forces and bombings inside Kabul, according to a member of the Afghan parliament, a foreign news agency reported.
The parliamentarian, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said President Hamid Karzai’s government had been in direct contact with Jalaludin Haqqani, the aging leader of the Haqqani network, which purportedly based in North Waziristan. The network is being run by his son, Sirajuddin.
The NYT reported on Wednesday that three members of the Taliban’s leadership council, known as the Quetta shura, have also taken part in preliminary discussions with the Afghan government, according to an Afghan official and a former diplomat in the region.
The newspaper said the White House and an Afghan who had participated in the discussions requested that the newspaper withhold the names of the three Taliban leaders plus a member of the Haqqani family who were involved in talks presumably to shield them from reprisal attacks.
Confirmation of talks with the Haqqani network would indicate that negotiations were being held with more than a handful of disaffected low to mid-level insurgents as the US and its allies seek an end to the more than nine-year-old war.
While skeptical in the past, the US last week expressed support for the Afghan government’s efforts to talk with senior members of the Taliban. Karzai, meanwhile, has asked Pakistan to hand over 31 Taliban figures who have been detained in the neighboring country, including Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
The Taliban released a statement on Tuesday saying no top leaders of the Taliban, known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, have been talking to the Afghan government. The statement was issued by Mullah Abdul Kabir, a member of the Taliban ruling council and rumored to be among the figures open to a peace deal.
“They mention names of a few members of the leadership, saying they have had contacts with them or at least shown willingness to initiate negotiation,” Kabir said in the statement. “The enemy has not produced any evidence despite many claims to indicate that the officials of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan were engaged in talks with them.”
Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former foreign minister and confidant of Taliban leader Mullah Omar also denied that top Taliban leaders were engaged in talks.
