US-Taliban talks set to begin

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-01-190613.html

US-Taliban talks set to begin
By Jim Lobe
Jun 19, '13

WASHINGTON - Nearly 12 years after the United States ousted the Taliban from power, the White House announced on Tuesday that the US will begin formal talks with the militant Islamist group in Qatar later this week as part of Afghanistan's national reconciliation process. The announcement, which coincided with ceremonies marking the formal transfer of primary security responsibility from US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces to their Afghan counterparts, preceded a statement issued shortly afterwards by the Taliban itself in which it implicitly disassociated itself from Al-Qaeda.

The Taliban "would not allow anyone to threaten the security of other countries from the soil of Afghanistan", Muhammad Naim, a Taliban spokesman, said in a televised broadcast from Doha. In addition, he pledged that the group seeks "a political and peaceful solution" to the conflict.

"These are two statements which we've long called for and together, they fulfill the requirements for the Taliban to open ... a political office in Doha for the purposes of negotiation with the Afghan government," said a senior official in a background teleconference for reporters.

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"The problem for the last 11 years is that it's the (US) military that's been running the show, and to the military, negotiations equals defeat. We're now shifting away from a policy of wanting to defeat the Taliban militarily to one of finding a political solution," he said.