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Afghanistan: Karzai in secret talks with Taliban

Feb 4, 2014 8:46 am By Robert Spencer

ba-Afghanistan_0501438763

He has always been a double dealer. Now he is trying to keep his head after the Americans are gone, which should have been long ago.

“Karzai Arranged Secret Contacts With the Taliban,” by Azam Ahmed and Matthew Rosenberg for the New York Times, February 3:

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been engaged in secret contacts with the Taliban about reaching a peace agreement without the involvement of his American and Western allies, further corroding already strained relations with the United States.

The secret contacts appear to help explain a string of actions by Mr. Karzai that seem intended to antagonize his American backers, Western and Afghan officials said. In recent weeks, Mr. Karzai has continued to refuse to sign a long-term security agreement with Washington that he negotiated, insisted on releasing hardened Taliban militants from prison and distributed distorted evidence of what he called American war crimes.

The clandestine contacts with the Taliban have borne little fruit, according to people who have been told about them. But they have helped undermine the remaining confidence between the United States and Mr. Karzai, making the already messy endgame of the Afghan conflict even more volatile. Support for the war effort in Congress has deteriorated sharply, and American officials say they are uncertain whether they can maintain even minimal security cooperation with Mr. Karzai’s government or its successor after coming elections.

Frustrated by Mr. Karzai’s refusal to sign the security agreement, which would clear the way for American troops to stay on for training and counterterrorism work after the end of the year, President Obama has summoned his top commanders to the White House on Tuesday to consider the future of the American mission in Afghanistan.

Western and Afghan officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the peace contacts, said that the outreach was apparently initiated by the Taliban in November, a time of deepening mistrust between Mr. Karzai and his allies. Mr. Karzai seemed to jump at what he believed was a chance to achieve what the Americans were unwilling or unable to do, and reach a deal to end the conflict — a belief that few in his camp shared.

The peace contacts, though, have yielded no tangible agreement, nor even progressed as far as opening negotiations for one. And it is not clear whether the Taliban ever intended to seriously pursue negotiations, or were simply trying to derail the security agreement by distracting Mr. Karzai and leading him on, as many of the officials said they suspected….

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Filed Under: Afghanistan, Taliban, United States


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Comments

  1. Cerrabella says

    Feb 4, 2014 at 9:29 am

    That is NOT a good picture of Kerry and Karzai as it shows the body language of a beggar (Kerry) and then Karzai saying in effect, ‘eh get outta’ here. You annoy me. You’re gettin’ nuttin’ honey.’

    • Jay Boo says

      Feb 4, 2014 at 11:52 am

      That is NOT a good picture of Kerry and Karzai as it shows the body language of a beggar (Kerry) and then Karzai saying in effect, ‘eh get outta’ here. You annoy me. You’re gettin’ nuttin’ honey.’
      ————-

      Exactly sums up Kerry …

      Aww come on Hamid ‘gimme’ a nice big hug. Do it for the cameras.
      Let me show the world just how very much I love, love, love Muslims.
      Don’t be like that, my good buddy, don’t make me grovel because you know I will.
      Come on Hamid my hoo hoo Hamid pal.
      Let me offer you money and Jerusalem and all of Europe if you just call me friend.

  2. mortimer says

    Feb 4, 2014 at 11:20 am

    Without universal, compulsory education and the teaching of rational, independent thought, Afghanistan hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hades of surviving after coalition troops leave. The troops may have to stay for 50 years to stabilize the country and continue to build necessary infrastructure. The new institutions of Afghanistan are young and need much more time to become firmly established. There can be no permission for Afghanistan to go back to the chaos of the past. It has to be dragged into the 21st century. Schools are the way to do that.

    • WVinMN says

      Feb 4, 2014 at 1:26 pm

      Ummm…no. Fascism is what you are suggesting and that never works. They either desire to become enlightened BY THEIR OWN FREE WILL or they don’t. I’m betting on “don’t”.

      • big mess says

        Feb 4, 2014 at 1:49 pm

        Yea, education is a tool of fascism, just like road signs and parenting. Down with authority, long live child-marriage and wife-stoning.

      • JimJFox says

        Feb 4, 2014 at 2:35 pm

        Fascism? This is not an ad hom attack but I have to say the statement is idiotic, even if the author isn’t.

    • JewishOdysseus says

      Feb 4, 2014 at 2:01 pm

      Attaturk & his followers tried that for 80 yrs in Turkey, a far more educated & modern country. It has failed. Can’t see how it can be done in the much less congenial environment of Afghanistan.

      • JimJFox says

        Feb 4, 2014 at 2:34 pm

        And you live in Turkey and KNOW this? Failed, how?

  3. Champ says

    Feb 4, 2014 at 2:44 pm

    But *I* love YOU …poor kerry looks forlorn while karzai smiles and whispers to himself ‘whatta wuss’!

    • Champ says

      Feb 4, 2014 at 2:46 pm

      kerry never trust a muslim m’kay!

  4. Walter Sieruk says

    Feb 4, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    Karzai is making a large mistake if he actually believe that some kind of genuine worthwhile “negotiations” for a real lasting “peace alliance” with the Taliban is possible. For the fiends who compose the Taliban have worked very hard to prove by their own actions, time and time again ,that they are a group of vicious ruthless thugs with no honor and would only keep their word in anything that they might promise only as long as it would would then and no longer. In any “dialogue ” with the officials of the Karzai government the Taliban will be very disingenuious and will dissimulate. To put this in another way, Karzai and his officials should heed the wisdom of Sun Tzu in THE ART OF WAR. Which teaches “We cannot enter into an alliance with neighboring princes until we are acquainted with their designs.” To put this in a more current and updated way, it may be said that “We cannot enter into an alliance with the Taliban until we are acquainted with their designs.”
    With the Taliban we all may be sure that their intentions are evil.

    • kikorikid says

      Feb 6, 2014 at 9:00 pm

      I’d bet the farm that the Taliban want nothing to do but
      pick up where they got stopped last. They will subdue town after town
      thru the countryside then Kandahar and Kabul. voila!

  5. fair_dinkum says

    Feb 5, 2014 at 5:10 am

    how are the talks secret?

    even if they were theyre not now. why would anyone be surprised at this?
    Karzai is a lowlife,

  6. dumbledoresarmy says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 3:34 am

    by all means let every non-Muslim soldier – and associated personnel, and everything moveable – get out of Islamic Afghanistan.

    *Then* shut down the embassies. *Then* shut down all the *Afghan* “embassies” in the lands of the non-Muslims. And get started on removing, from the lands of the non-Muslims, and sending back to Afghanistan, all identifiable Afghan Muslims – starting with all the males of military age, who comprise a wholly disproportionate percentage of all the supposed ‘refugees’ and ‘asylum seekers’ who have poured out of Afghanistan in the past forty years and somehow ended up in, for example, places like *Greece* where they are an absolute menace.

    If non-Muslims are not welcome or safe in Afghanistan, then why the *hell* should Afghan Muslims expect to be free to waltz into any non-Muslim country and settle down there and make endless demands and build mosque after mosque after mosque (i.e. military bases, forts, gang dens) and – very very frequently – indulge in acts of aggression, rape, theft, fraud, etc?

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