The Taliban broke off confidence-building talks with the Americans on Thursday and the Afghan president ordered US troops out of villages, demanding a transition of security from NATO control in 2013. “It was due to their alternating and ever-changing position that the Islamic Emirate was compelled to suspend all dialogue with the Americans,” the Taliban said on their website.
In Kabul, Panetta and Karzai gave radically different versions of talks between the two men, after the Americans insisted that recent events would not see US-led NATO combat troops withdraw earlier than scheduled in 2014. Karzai then told Panetta that US-led international forces should “be withdrawn from villages and relocated in their bases”, his office said. There was no immediate response from NATO or Panetta, who told reporters after his Karzai talks that he was “confident” both sides could work out a treaty allowing a US military presence in the country beyond 2014.
