The Taliban may withdraw their major condition of foreign troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan for the start of peace dialogue with the US, but they are not willing to soften their stance on other two main conditions of removal of names of key insurgent commanders from the United Nations terrorists’ list and release of their prisoners from American custody.
The US administration is trying to restart peace talks with the Taliban after the successful re-election bid of President Obama. The talks between Taliban representatives and US officials broke down in Doha in March this year due to the unwillingness of Washington to set free important Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay prison.
The Taliban walked out of the peace talks over what they said was US failure to fulfill its commitment that it made over the release of detainees. The talks held at that time between the two main actors in Afghan imbroglio were, however, said to be initial contacts and not any meaningful negotiations.
The Mullah Omar-led Taliban have been asking the US for months to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan before the commencement of any serious peace dialogue, release Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and last but not the least, use its influence to remove the names of Taliban leaders from the UN terrorists’ list.
“The Taliban leaders seem to have softened their stance now on foreign troops’ withdrawal from Afghanistan as a key demand for the start of any ‘meaningful negotiations’ with the US and they are willing to not insist on that,” a diplomatic source privy to the renewed efforts said.
However, he said the reason behind the Taliban’s flexibility was that the US had already announced it wanted to withdraw bulk of its forces by 2014 and they (Taliban leaders) believed that once the other conditions were met by the Americans, the contentious issue of troops’ withdrawal could be discussed, debated upon and sorted out later.
The other conditions, he said, were the release of Taliban leaders and removal of their names from the UN terrorists’ list.
A Pakistani diplomat said he was not in a position to say anything with authority on the Taliban conditions for talks, but it was true the US was trying for restart of peace negotiations with the Taliban, which collapsed early this year.
The diplomatic source said Pakistan and Afghanistan were also working on ‘peace roadmap to 2015 in Afghanistan’ under which the Taliban would be offered a share in central government in the Afghan capital, as well as control of provinces where they already have their writ.
He said the Taliban would also be able to take part in national and provincial polls in Afghanistan but in return, they (Taliban) would have to shun the path of violence, renounce al Qaeda and accept the Afghan constitution.
The source, however, said the reaction of Taliban top leadership to offers under the ‘peace roadmap to 2015’ was not known so far and nothing could be said about its success or failure.
“Full efforts are underway to bring back the Taliban to the table of negotiations and for that, some good offers are also being made, but it is still not clear how the Taliban leaders will respond to these offers,” the source added.
