Calls for Afghanistan peace talks get louder

[bigtree]

3 hours ago

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Moderate elements of the Taliban appear more willing than ever to seek accommodation with the Kabul government but they want guarantees that they will not be persecuted after they stop fighting, an Afghan official said.

A meeting of the ruling Taliban council - minus the elusive top leader Mullah Omar - was held in Quetta, Pakistan, last October.

Moderate voices among the 50 delegates at the meeting began agitating for some kind of accommodation with the government of President Hamid Karzai . . .

Afghanistan's top clerics are pushing Karzai's government to take up an offer by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to mediate peace talks.

Despite rising casualties among western troops, including four Canadian soldiers killed in bombings last Friday, there are signs in the countryside around Kandahar that some Taliban supporters have had enough of the fighting.

Elders from the insurgent hotbed of Salevat recently invited NATO and Afghan troops to visit them and wanted access to the Afghan government's peace-through-strength program, an under-funded initiative meant to promote reconciliation.


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[pleah]

1. K&R Good. Maybe we can get the hell out of Afghanistan, too.

?

[bigtree]

3. it's a growing

hope

[pleah]

4. It is quite amazing how things seem to be changing

hopefully for the better over there, since a Democrat is in power now. Maybe I am just wishful thinking.

[boomerbust]

2. How many

Saudi troops are fighting over there?