US and Afghan officials have shown flexibility in secret talks with one of Afghanistan’s most notorious insurgent factions in the hope it will help end the country’s long war, a negotiator for the outlawed Hizb-e-Islami group said on Monday. Ghairat Baheer, the son-in-law of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, told Reuters that he had in recent weeks held exploratory talks with CIA director David Petraeus, the former commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Despite Hekmatyar’s branding as a “terrorist” by the US State Department eight years ago for supporting Taliban and al Qaeda attacks, Baheer said he had also met face-to-face in the last three weeks with US Ambassador Ryan Crocker in Kabul, as well as current commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, US General John Allen.
“We had exchanges of views with the people and it was productive. We are fully open to any peace efforts and our aim is to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Baheer said by phone from Pakistan. A spokesman for the US embassy in Kabul declined to confirm any American involvement in the talks.
“We have a broad range of contacts across Afghanistan and the region to support Afghan reconciliation efforts. I’m not going to get into the details of those contacts,” he said in response to Baheer’s claims. The US has been holding exploratory talks with the Taliban – seen as the best chance of ending the war that began with the US-led invasion of the country 10 years ago – for more than a year. Hizb-e-Islami, which means Islamic Party, is a radical militant group which shares some of the Taliban’s anti-foreigner, anti-government aims, and has widespread national support. Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister, is a fierce rival of the Taliban’s one-eyed leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, and became a hero to many Afghans while leading mujahideen fighters against the Soviet occupation of the country in the 1980s.
