Afghanistan offers to protect Taliban leader during talks
KABUL, Afghanistan - As international pressure mounts for negotiations with insurgents, President Hamid Karzai said yesterday that he would guarantee the security of Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar if he decides to enter into talks.
Striking a defiant tone, Karzai said during a news conference in the Afghan capital that he would not bow to demands from the international community to turn Omar over to US authorities if the Taliban leader agreed to negotiate a peace settlement with Karzai's government.
"As for Mullah Omar and his associates, if I hear from him that he is willing to come to Afghanistan or to negotiate for peace and for liberty so that our children will not be killed anymore, I as the president of Afghanistan will go to any length to provide him security," Karzai said.
"If I say I want protection for Mullah Omar, the international community has two choices: remove me or leave," he added.
Taliban spokesmen have so far rejected the idea of talks, but there has been speculation for weeks that preliminary negotiations are already underway between the Afghan government and insurgent leaders.
In September, representatives from Karzai's government met with former Taliban leaders in Saudi Arabia. That meeting was widely viewed as the potential first step on what could be a long road to a negotiated settlement to end the decades-long conflict in Afghanistan.
With violence hitting new highs as the US-led war in Afghanistan enters its seventh year, US and NATO officials have recently indicated increasing support for talks with Islamist insurgents as one way to rein in fighting across the country.
While American military officials have called for NATO allies to augment the estimated 62,000 foreign troops already operating in Afghanistan, Afghan and US officials have tacitly acknowledged that negotiating with moderate Taliban commanders is a key part of a strategy currently under consideration by General David Petraeus, the head of the US Central Command.
Omar, the enigmatic and highly reclusive Taliban leader, hardly fits the profile of a moderate. Since his public refusal to turn over Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to US authorities after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he has held a prominent place on a list of US-designated global terrorists.
Omar rose to power in the southern province of Kandahar in the mid-1990s after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan plunged the country into a chaotic civil war. A fierce military commander who was wounded several times in battle, Omar ruled the country until the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
Intelligence analysts believe Omar now leads his fighters from a safe haven near the southern Pakistani city of Quetta. The US has offered a multimillion dollar reward for Omar's capture.
Karzai said his government is willing to talk with any insurgent group that agrees to accept and respect the Afghan constitution. But talks with groups involved with Al Qaeda are out of the question, he said.
The Afghan president also cautioned that discussions with insurgent leaders such as Omar remain a long way off while violence continues. 