Jirga delegates thrash out Taliban peace proposal
Afghan peace conference delegates are today fine-tuning the details of a proposal to negotiate with the Taliban in a bid to end years of conflict in the country.
With violence running at record levels, president Hamid Karzai wants to offer rank-and-file insurgents amnesties and other incentives to lay down their arms, and to hold talks with top Taliban leaders if they renounce al-Qaida and vow to uphold the constitution.
Winning the backing of the conference in Kabul would bolster the political standing of Mr Karzai, who is increasingly unpopular because of corruption in his government and his fraud-marred re-election last year.
The 1,500 provincial, religious, tribal and other leaders attending the peace jirga, as the conference is known, have argued over whether the Taliban’s top leadership should be welcomed to the negotiating table. Others have said the three-day jirga has been too short to achieve a meaningful outcome.
Deliberations have at times been acrimonious. Among key points of difference is whether militant leaders should be removed from a UN blacklist that freezes assets and bars overseas travel, and whether US bounties on the heads of senior Taliban leaders should be lifted.
Even if Mr Karzai wins the broad support of jirga delegates for his peace plans, it would only be a tentative first step towards negotiating an end to the nearly nine-year conflict in Afghanistan, where violence shows no sign of easing despite a surge in US forces.
The Taliban have dismissed the jirga as a “phony reconciliation process” stacked with Mr Karzai’s supporters. Suicide bombers launched an attack on the opening session, which was thwarted without any harm coming to delegates.
The Taliban insists there will be no negotiations until all foreign troops leave Afghanistan – a condition that Mr Karzai could not accept.
Meanwhile, the US government, while supportive of attempts to reach out to lower-rung insurgents, remains sceptical of a major political initiative with Taliban leaders until militant forces are weakened on the battlefield.
