(Image: Wikimedia Commons)

BY TRACY PFEIFFER

ANCHOR JENNIFER MECKLES
 

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A different strategy for peace in Afghanistan -- can coalition forces talk down the Taliban?

ANCHOR: “Afghan president Hamid Karzai says his government and the United States are negotiating with Taliban fighters to end the fighting. This is the first time someone has officially acknowledged peace talks are underway. Karzai told journalists today, negotiations are going well.” (KTVU)

But what exactly do ‘peace talks’ mean? A former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan tells the BBC -- of course it isn’t as simple as a round table discussion.

COL. RICHARD KEMP: “This kind of thing is initiated and set up by intelligence services such as the CIA, MI6, and other national intelligence organizations working in various different ways - through go-betweens and contacts …It’s likely that there’s not direct talks between any U.S. official and Mullah Omar’s inner circle, for example. It will involve go-betweens almost certainly at this point.”

CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr says -- the news isn’t surprising, but negotiation is a tough route to take.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: “It has long been said that Afghanistan will be solved by a political settlement with the Taliban and with the insurgents. You can’t kill them all, you know. (FLASH) But one of the big problems right now is when you say ‘the Taliban,’ who are they? There are so many groups out there, there are so many different insurgent loyalties, just to say you’re going to sit down with the Taliban would be very tough, wouldn’t really solve the problems.”

And a writer for the Telegraph adds --

“Previous international efforts to contact the Taliban high leadership have foundered on an inability to reach anyone who has the confidence of the Taliban leader. In one notorious case last year a man claiming to be senior leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour was in fact an impostor and walked away with a large sum of money.”

But the LA Times reports -- while peace talks may look like the best case scenario for Karzai’s government and coalition forces -- some Afghan citizens don’t see it that way.

“Most Afghans believe a negotiated settlement is the only way to bring the decade-old conflict to an end. But many also fear the price of any peace, worried that desperation for a deal will result in too many concessions to the militants, potentially paving the way for a return of notoriously repressive elements of Taliban rule.”

U.S. officials have neither confirmed or denied Karzai’s claim.

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