Kabul, September 29
President Hamid Karzai today offered to meet Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace talks and give the militants a high position in a government ministry as a way to end the rising insurgency in Afghanistan.
Reiterating a call for negotiations he has made with increasing frequency over the last several weeks, Karzai also said he was willing to meet with factional warlord leader and former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
“If I find their address, there is no need for them to come to me, I’ll personally go there and get in touch with them,” Karzai said. He said he has contacts with Taliban militants through tribal elders but that there are no direct and open government communication channels with the fighters.
Karzai, earlier this month, had renewed a call for talks with the Taliban, and a spokesman for the militant group initially had said the fighters might be open to negotiations. But spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi later said foreign troops must first leave the country, a demand Karzai today said he would not meet.
— AP
