Holbrooke Supports Karzai Talks With Pakistan and Taliban
Richard Holbrooke, US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, speaks with journalists. Photographer: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images
The U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan offered encouragement today for negotiations Afghan President Hamid Karzai has held with Pakistani officials and Taliban leaders.
Karzai’s meeting with Pakistan’s top national security officials “is a good thing, not a bad thing,” Richard Holbrooke said on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” The U.S. supports overtures to the Taliban by Karzai, he said.
“Among the Taliban leadership, there are some people who are reconcilable and some are not,” Holbrooke said. “We support a policy in which the Afghan government of President Karzai takes the lead.”
Meetings between Karzai and the Pakistani security officials, Army chief General Ashfaq Kiyani and intelligence director Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, have prompted concern in neighboring countries, particularly India, the Washington Post reported today, citing diplomatic and government officials.
Neighboring governments fear the meetings may move Karzai closer to a wish to negotiate with Taliban leaders and bring some of them into his government, the Post reported.
India, Iran and Afghanistan’s northern neighbors have expressed concern that a settlement with elements of the Taliban would strengthen the influence of the Afghanistan’s Pashtun population, which is the country’s largest ethnic group and is closely tied to Pakistan, the Post said.
Ethnic Minorities
Such ties may come at the cost of Afghanistan’s Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic minorities, which are linked to other neighboring countries, the newspaper said.
India and Pakistan are strategic rivals wary of developments that could enhance the influence of the other.
The U.S. seeks to “reduce the gap” between Pakistan and Afghanistan “while taking into account the strategic interests of India and other regional neighbors,” Holbrooke said.
General Stanley McChrystal, then the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was present at the meeting between Karzai and Kiyani, Holbrooke said. The new commander, General David Petraeus, “will continue to play the same role, if not more so,” he said.
The U.S. government has had “no direct contact” with Taliban leaders while the Karzai government explores a reconciliation.
“They have to reach political arrangements,” Holbrooke said. “That is up to them.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Mike Dorning in Washington D.C. at mdorning@bloomberg.net.
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