An Are-They-Or-Aren’t-They? Update. I would say, “Only his hairdresser knows for sure,” but the hairdresser has been blown up.
“Afghanistan: Taliban leader rejects prospect of truce,” by Syed Saleem Shahzad for AKI, November 25 :
Kandahar, 25 Nov. (AKI) – While the western media raised hopes of a reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghan government when Saudi Arabia sponsored talks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the man named as one of the main negotiators, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Rahmani, denied any involvement.
The Saudi government owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat even quoted the Afghan Minister of Information, Sheikh Mohammed Tashkiri, who said a second round of negotiations took place in Dubai between a delegation from Kabul and one from the Taliban movement.
According to Tashkiri, “on both occasions representatives of Mullah Omar participated in the meetings, the most authoritative among them was Mullah Mohammad Hasan Rahmani”.
However, in an interview with AKI, Mullah Hasan Rahmani, a close advisor of Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, rejected the claims saying they were a figment of the imagination of the Kabul administration led by President Hamid Karzai. […]
“Today the Taliban is successful and the Americans and the NATO forces are in a state of defeat,” Mullah Rahmani said.
“The enemy wants to engage the Taliban and deviate their minds. Sometimes they offer talks, sometimes they offer other fake issues. The Taliban never ever asked for talks, neither do we want these talks to be held.
“Neither the Saudi Arabian initiative [in Mecca] nor the Saudi Arabian proposal [regarding Mullah Omar] is acceptable,” Mullah Hasan Rahmani said.
Hasan Rahmani completely denied that any Taliban representatives attended King Abdullah’s dinner in September or any other talks with the Kabul government.
“In the last days of Ramadan, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, was invited for dinner, but later the media projected that talks had begun with the Taliban under Saudi mediation,” he said.
“That was to weaken the Taliban and their jihad. The fact is that the Taliban were not part of such talks, nor are they ready to be so.”…