Talks with Taliban stalled since March: US

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Talks with Taliban stalled since March: US

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US administration says that reconciliation talks with Taliban are stalled for last several months.

04 October,2012 12:20 pm

The spokesperson of the US State Department, Victoria Nuland, said during a briefing Wednesday that there was no update in this regard. We’ve created this Afghan-Pakistan-US group to facilitate Afghan-led reconciliation. It’s got some working groups on things like safe passage. But the Taliban have not been interested in coming to the table for some time. So the door is open there; they have to make a choice, she maintained.When asked about the reasons for Talibans lack of interest in talks with Afghanistan and Pakistan, she said that they (Taliban) had made this decision on their own. They themselves made an announcement back in March that they were suspending participation. And so they’ve got to make the decision whether they’re going to take advantage of the opportunities that are open to them, she pointed out.On another question regarding the future of these talks, she declined to give a clear answer. Obviously I don’t have a crystal ball as to where reconciliation is going to go. We have supported the Afghan-led process. They’ve got an open door to it. It’s now for the Taliban to decide if they want to take advantage of it, she explained.The spokesperson also asserted that the US was backing the recent Pak-Afghan parleys to address the tension on cross-border attacks. We obviously focus very intensively still on security with the Afghans. We have strongly supported Afghan-Pakistan-NATO-U.S. conversations about the cross-border issues, and we will continue to do that, she remarked.On the US-Afghan security partnership talks specifically at bilateral level, she said that efforts were underway to try and complete the bilateral security agreement talks within a year. The first meeting between the Afghan and US sides will be at some point in the future – that’ll start our 12-month clock that we hope to be able to meet, she opined.As we transfer Afghan security lead by the end of 2014, the U.S. security and training relationship with Afghan National Security Forces will continue but will need a new underlying bilateral agreement for that. That’s what this bilateral security agreement is about, she explained. She said that the elections in Afgfhanistan and the future of reconciliation talks will not impact the outcome of this strategic agreement.The electoral process is obviously an important milestone in Afghanistan’s democracy. This would be the third election, I think, and it’ll be very important that it be free, fair, transparent, that they allow international monitors, that there be a stable environment for it. So obviously, we’re very focused on that in our political conversations and in our security conversation with the Afghans, she asserted.On the reconciliation side, as we’ve said for a long time now, we support an Afghan-led process, and there has been a lot of work done to prepare the ground for that. It’s really – the ball is in the Taliban court, whether they want to play or not, she said while not sounding too optimistic with the outcome of these talks - considered vital for the endgame in Afghanistan - in the near future.The situation in Afghanistan, she believed, was evolving. As the Afghans take on more of the responsibility for their own security, we will obviously work with them, as we do with many countries, on election security, to the extent that they want support, they want help. The elections are supposed to be in 2014, so presumably we won’t have completed the full transition, but as we have in past elections, we would expect that we would be open to Afghan requirements and requests for support. But it’s obviously going to be their lead in how this is structured, she went on to add.Ms. Nuland said that the situation in Afghanistan was also discussed during the recent meeting between Secretary Clinton and Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna. They reviewed the trilateral meeting that we had – Afghanistan, India, US. India has been a big economic and development investor. It’s been supportive of police force strengthening in Afghanistan. And they’ve been a big contributor to the broader Silk Road vision that the Secretary strongly supports, she stated.She said that regional economic integration, including the TAPI pipeline (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India pipeline) was also discussed in the Clinton-Krishna meeting. They discussed our joint efforts on energy, civil nuclear cooperation, visas, trade and bilateral investment, cooperation with India’s near neighbors, she informed.Secretary Clinton, she said, also commended that India and Pakistan were working together on the economic side. She, however, said that the Kashmir issue - considered the core issue in India-Pakistan conflict - was not discussed during Clintons meetings with President Zardari or FM Krishna on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York last week.More broadly, we have said for some time that we applaud the progress that India and Pakistan have made in their dialogue, particularly on the economic side. We are encouraged that they’ve taken some concrete steps to normalize trade relations, including the recently signed agreement on visa liberalization. We want to see this economic warming extend to other areas. With regard to our own policy on Kashmir, it hasn’t changed. It’s been the same for a very long time, she said while appreciating the recent steps taken by both the South Asian neighbours.- Contributed by Awais Saleem, Dunya News correspondent in Washington, DC