NATO to keep fighting Taliban: Rasmussen

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NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday that Western alliance would maintain military pressure on Taliban.
He was speaking after Afghan President Hamid Karzai told The Wall Street Journal the US and Afghan governments had begun secret three-way meetings with the Taliban to try to bolster US-led efforts to convene fully-fledged peace talks.
“The stronger the military pressure on the Taliban, the better the chance that they realise they have no chance whatsoever militarily, so (they had) better go to the negotiation table,” he told reporters during a trip to Greece.
“We will keep up the military pressure that will also facilitate a political solution,” added Rasmussen.
Karzai’s government had previously been excluded from early contacts between the Taliban and the United States, with the insurgents seen as resisting the involvement of a local administration they regard as a puppet of Washington.
The Afghan ambassador to Pakistan told Reuters on Thursday any contacts between the Afghan Taliban and the United States had been only “exploratory”.
“When there are talks, it is supposed to be between the Afghan government and the Taliban. We have not reached that stage although we wish to reach that stage,” Umar Daudzai said in Islamabad.
Rasmussen said the Afghan government must be “in the driver’s seat” for any negotiations and that any parties involved must renounce terrorism and respect the Afghan constitution, including clauses on women’s rights and other human rights.
“I don t know whether it will be possible to find a negotiated solution … If these conditions are fulfilled, I think we should give it a try,” he said.
The United States and NATO are racing against the clock to train a 350,000-strong force of Afghan police and soldiers who will take over all security responsibilities before end-2014.

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