Nawaz mediating between Taliban, Karzai

7. October 2008, 13:22
By Tariq Butt, The News (Pakistan)
ISLAMABAD:

PML-N Quaid Nawaz Sharif is playing a key role in conjunction with Saudi Arabia in bringing about a negotiated settlement between the Taliban and the Karzai regime to pave the way for withdrawal of the US and Nato forces from Afghanistan.

“It was for this precise reason that the PML-N chief has put off his departure from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan for another two days,” an informed source told The News. According to his new programme, the PML-N chief will return home on Tuesday.

“Nawaz Sharif was invited by Saudi King Abdullah and he undertook the present visit to stay in Saudi Arabia for nearly two weeks to talk about the nitty-gritty of the peace process,” the source said.

The day the PML-N chief landed in Saudi Arabia, he had a 90-minute meeting with the Saudi monarch, the source said, adding different national and regional issues, particularly the ongoing wave of terrorist attacks in Pakistan and bloodshed in Afghanistan, were discussed in detail.

According to a US media report on Monday, secret peace talks have been held between the Afghan government and the Taliban in the Saudi Kingdom. Both sides agreed to resolve the Afghan issue through dialogue, it said.

While PML-N leaders, closely working with Nawaz Sharif, were aware of Nawaz Sharif’s objective behind his extended stay in Saudi Arabia, sources close to President Asif Zardari were oblivious of the PML-N chief’s “role” and “efforts” in bringing the warring sides on the negotiating table.

“Nawaz Sharif is serving as a bridge,” one political source said and added the PML-N chief is an “old hand” on Afghanistan. During his two stints as prime minister, Nawaz Sharif had developed good working relations with almost all the Afghan Mujahideen leaders, who were now largely irrelevant because of the fighting strength of the Taliban.

The source referred to the March 1993 Islamabad accord, which eight Afghan Mujahideen leaders had signed because of Nawaz Sharif’s efforts.Nawaz Sharif stayed just a few days in Pakistan after his return from Britain and then flew into Saudi Arabia. In London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband had a meeting with him in which Nato forces’ operations in Afghanistan and constant failures to control the situation figured prominently.

Sources believed that the Saudi initiative in which Nawaz Sharif had his own role has the backing of Washington and London.A British general has been quoted as saying that the war in Afghanistan can’t be won. Additionally, there have been reports of willingness of Washington and London for holding talks with the Taliban, especially after the incapacitation of the Karzai regime.

One PPP leader close to President Zardari referred to a recent interview of NWFP Governor Owais Ghani, given to an American newspaper, in which he was quoted as saying that the United States should hold negotiations with Mullah Omar. He was surprised over the governor’s statement particularly when viewed in the context of Pakistan’s repeated assertions that Islamabad was unaware of the whereabouts of Mullah Omar. It has been saying that had Pakistan known about his location it would have caught and brought him to justice. “It would look a bit odd for such an important governor to talk like this unless he has a lot of substance in his remarks,” the PPP leader said. He said he had conveyed the remarks of the governor to the right quarters. But he did not specify these circles and their reaction.

Kabul held Makkah talks with Taliban: Saudi paper

7. October 2008, 13:26
AFP -

The Afghan government held talks with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia last month, a leading Saudi paper reported, despite denials from both Kabul and the Taliban that such talks had taken place.

The Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, quoting informed Afghan sources, said on Tuesday the three-day talks were held under Saudi auspices in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

It said the talks, aimed at "stopping the violence" in Afghanistan, were held during the final days of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ended on September 29.

The negotiators moved on to Islamabad on Sunday, the paper said.

They included Mullah Mohammad Tayeb Agha, who was the chief in Kandahar of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and his spokesman before the Taliban's ouster from power by the US-led invasion of 2001, and Omar's "foreign minister", Wakil Ahmad Mutawakkel.

It transpired during the talks that the Taliban leader is "no longer an ally of Al-Qaeda," Asharq Al-Awsat quoted a source close to the talks as saying.

The report came one day after the US-backed Afghan government said it was hoping for peace talks with the Taliban but denied a US news report that a first round of negotiations took place in Mecca between September 24 and 27.

A spokesman for the Taliban also dismissed the report.

The Saudi government has so far not commented on the reports about the purported talks.

Afghan religious scholars visited Saudi Arabia during Ramadan and attended a dinner with King Abdullah but there were no negotiations with the Taliban, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said on Monday.

The government did, however, want such talks in order to find a way to end a Taliban-led insurgency, spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told AFP, reiterating a statement made by Karzai last week.

"It has not happened yet. We would like that to happen but how, when and where, by what mechanism and with whose help -- we are working on that," Hamidzada said.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahed, said the movement had "not had any talks or negotiations with the government, neither in Saudi nor anywhere else."

Karzai told reporters last week that Afghan envoys had made repeated trips to Saudi Arabia and to Pakistan to facilitate negotiations but nothing had been finalised.

Saudi Arabia was one of only three countries that recognised the Taliban regime. The others were Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif said Sharif was willing to broker talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

The offer came after a Pakistani newspaper reported that Sharif, in conjunction with Saudi Arabia, is helping to seek a settlement between the Taliban and Karzai's regime.

Taliban, Karzai govt deny holding talks

7. October 2008, 13:21
By Rahimullah Yusufzai, The News (Pakistan)
PESHAWAR:

Taliban and even President Hamid Karzai are crying hoarse that they haven’t held any peace talks yet but it is intriguing that some Western media organisations are insisting that the two sides are negotiating with help from the government of Saudi Arabia.

Such reports are being disseminated at a time when British and certain other Western officials are calling for talks with the Taliban for finding a political instead of a military solution to the Afghan conflict. Once again on Monday, a major US television channel reported that an 11-member Taliban delegation had held talks for four days in late September with Afghan government officials and that a representative of former mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar also attended the meetings in the holy city of Makkah. It claimed Saudi King Abdullah met the Afghan delegates to show his personal commitment to the cause of peace and reconciliation in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Earlier, a British newspaper had reported that a former Taliban leader with the blessings of Saudi intelligence was mediating between the Taliban movement and the Afghan government. It said the British intelligence was also backing the effort.

President Karzai promptly denied the report by the British newspaper, though he disclosed that his government had requested Saudi Arabia to facilitate meetings and negotiations between it and the Taliban. Regretting that Taliban didn’t respond positively to his government’s offer of a dialogue, he went to the extent of referring to Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar as his ‘brother’ and offered to provide guarantees for his safety if he visited Kabul for talks.

As expected, both Afghan government and the Taliban have denied the latest reports about their meetings and negotiations in Makkah. An Afghan government official said in Kabul that no such talks had taken place.

Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yousaf Ahmadi made it clear that they had not sent any delegation to Saudi Arabia for talks. He said Taliban were sticking to their stand not to hold negotiations as long as foreign occupation forces were present in Afghanistan.

Another Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said some former Taliban members may have visited Saudi Arabia but they were no longer part of their movement and couldn’t represent Taliban in any talks.

It was learnt that former Taliban foreign minister Mulla Wakil Ahmad Mutawwakil, along with another ex-minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani and Mulla Abdul Salam Zaeef, who was Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan during the last months of Taliban rule, visited Saudi Arabia recently to perform Umra as guests of the Saudi government. At an Iftar-dinner hosted by King Abdullah, the former Taliban members were among the invitees along with delegates from several other countries. An Afghan government delegation led by former chief justice Maulvi Abdul Hadi Shinwari and including lawmaker Abdul Salam Rocketi was also invited by the Saudi government to perform Umra and attend the Iftar party. The chance encounter between the Afghans there is now being described by sections of the Western media as part of a ‘historic’ four-day meeting involving Taliban and Karzai government officials.

Saudi Arabia, which along with Pakistan and UAE had recognised the Taliban-led Afghan government, snapped its contacts with Taliban after the 9/11 attacks on the US. It is understood that the two sides are still estranged with each other and no effort has been made to revive those contacts.

Zaeef, who was arrested by Pakistani authorities in December 2001 after the fall of Taliban regime and delivered to the US military, told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) Monday that he and his colleagues visited Saudi Arabia to perform Umra on the invitation of the Saudi government. However, he insisted that they neither represented Taliban nor the Afghan government during their visit. “As per my information, no talks were held between Taliban and the Afghan government in Saudi Arabia. Also at King Abdullah’s Iftar-dinner on September 29, there was no discussion whatsoever on the Afghan issue,” he recalled.

Zaeef was freed from the US government’s detention centre in Guantanamo Bay on the recommendation of the Afghan government and is now living in Kabul. He wrote a Pashto book, The Picture of Guantanamo, on his years in jail after his release. The book is being translated into a number of languages.

Taliban leadership is suspicious of Zaeef as well as Mutawwakil and Rahmani because they are living in Kabul under the protection of the Afghan government. This is the reason that they have made it clear that the three had no authority to represent Taliban in any talks. Taliban were unhappy when their former foreign minister Mutawwakil surrendered to the US military in Kandahar without consulting Mulla Omar and the Taliban shura. Mutawwakil wasn’t taken to Guantanamo Bay prison and was freed after remaining imprisoned for sometime at the Kandahar airbase and Bagram detention cells. Zaeef’s position was different as he was apprehended by Pakistani authorities even though he had diplomatic immunity and handed over to the Americans. Rahmani wasn’t arrested after fall of Taliban regime.