American special representative for Af-Pak region dismisses speculation of talks with the Taliban
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 6:13:24 by Hamza Jahangir
No peace talks with the Taliban this week: That was the short message on Sunday from the American envoy charged with starting those negotiations. Stopping here in Kabul this weekend on his way to Qatar, where the insurgents are
in the process of opening an office, the envoy, Marc Grossman, implicitly rejected reports that he planned to begin negotiations there this week. He made it clear that there was a long way to go.
Qatar still needs to talk to the Afghans about the proposed Taliban office, he said, and the United States needs to talk to Pakistan, which rebuffed Mr. Grossman’s plans to visit last week. Perhaps most telling, the Taliban still
needs to clarify whether they actually intend to engage in peace talks, he said.
“The peace process is a comprehensive and large and complicated set of issues,” Mr. Grossman, the United States’ special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in a news conference here on Sunday after meeting with President
Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.
He repeatedly reassured the Afghans that any peace talks would be “Afghans talking to Afghans. Only Afghans can decide the future of Afghanistan,” he said.
What is obvious, however, is that the first steps are being taken by American officials, working through the Persian Gulf state of Qatar, and President Karzai’s aides had expressed concern that they might be sidelined.
The American envoy repeatedly emphasized that the Taliban have not explicitly said that they would participate in peace talks. While they have enthusiastically and publicly endorsed opening an office in Qatar, they have yet to
clarify that it would be used for peace talks rather than, as some have feared, to enhance their international prestige while they wait out the American military withdrawal in 2014.
Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=10497
Posted by Hamza Jahangir
on Jan 25 2012. Filed under Latest News, Pakistan, World.
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