West should have talked to Taliban over 10 years ago - British
general
AFGHANISTAN: The West should have negotiated with the Taliban more
than a decade ago, soon after they were toppled, Britain’s senior
general in Afghanistan said on Saturday after recent efforts to start
peace talks collapsed in ignominy.
General Nick Carter told the London-based Guardian newspaper that an
opportunity to bring peace to Afghanistan was missed when the Taliban
were on the defensive in 2002 after they were ousted following the 9/11
attacks.
“The Taliban were on the run,” he said. “At that stage, if we had
been very prescient, we might have spotted that a final political
solution... would have involved getting all Afghans to sit at the table
and talk about their future.” Carter, deputy commander of the NATO-led
coalition, acknowledged it was “easy to be wise with the benefit of
hindsight” but that Afghanistan’s problems were political issues that
“are only ever solved by people talking to each other”. The search for a
peace settlement with the Taliban is now a priority for the Afghan
government and international powers as the insurgency still rages across
many parts of the country and US-led troops prepare to exit next year.
A Taliban office in Qatar that opened on June 18 was meant to foster
talks but instead triggered a diplomatic bust-up when the insurgents
used the title of the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” from their
1996-2001 reign.
President Hamid Karzai, furious that the office was being styled as
an embassy for a government-in-exile, broke off separate security talks
with the Americans and threatened to boycott any peace process
altogether.
US President Barack Obama recently said he anticipated “a lot of
bumps in the road” during the peace process but that it was the only way
to end the violence in Afghanistan.
More than 3,300 coalition personnel have been killed in Afghanistan
since 2001, peaking at 711 deaths in 2010, according to the independent
icasualties.org website.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said at the G8 summit 10 days
ago that the 12-year military effort in Afghanistan, where Britain still
has around 7,900 troops, had to be matched by a “political process”.
“That is exactly what I hope can happen with elements of the
Taliban,” he said.
Only hours after the Qatar office opened, a Taliban rocket attack
killed four Americans on the largest military base in Afghanistan. Just
days later, a suicide squad targeted the presidential palace and a CIA
office, in the most audacious assault in Kabul in years.
The capital’s airport, its Supreme Court and an international aid
group’s compound have also been attacked in recent weeks by
heavily-armed Taliban suicide bombers.
“First of all, people like to negotiate from a position of strength,
and secondly I think the opponents of Afghanistan would like to appear
to compel the international community’s withdrawal,” Carter said.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that we are seeing spectacular attacks
in Kabul and a continuance of attacks elsewhere.”
AFP |
