KABUL, 27 April 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai is negotiating with former Taleban members, according to a transcript of his remarks received yesterday, as he prepares to bring the war-wracked country to its first elections since the fall of the regime. Karzai outlined the talks in a speech during a visit Sunday to the Taleban’s former stronghold and spiritual headquarters of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s main southern city and the heart of the restive Pashtun ethnic belt.
“At the moment some of their elders are in talks with us, we are happy with this,” Karzai said without naming the leaders. “Taleban have contacted us, it has been a long time they are talking with us and we are talking with them. We know them, we know them from the past.” The visit was Karzai’s first to Kandahar since he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt there in September 2002. He said former Taleban were welcome to help rebuild the country.
“For us, any person whether they are a Taleban or a non-Taleban who has contacts with terrorism and is acting against Afghanistan, against the reconstruction of this country, against the education and welfare of the children of this country, they are against Afghanistan and we don’t accept them.
“Other people, Taleban and non-Taleban whoever they are, especially among Taleban who want to come and live in their country, farm, work, do business and live, they are welcome. It is their country, it is their home,” Karzai said. “Our problem is only with those who destroy Afghanistan... we are opposed to those people, the rest are welcome.”
Meanwhile, three US Marines were wounded when their patrol convoy was hit by a home-made bomb in southern Afghanistan, a military official said yesterday. The convoy was attacked Saturday on the outskirts of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, US military spokesman Lt. Col. Tucker Mansager told a news conference in Kabul.
“An explosive device was detonated alongside the convoy resulting in injuries to the Marines,” he said. One of the three was seriously injured in the ambush near Daylanor village. All three were evacuated to the US-led coalition’s southern headquarters in Kandahar Air Base, he said.
