KABUL: President Hamid Karzai yesterday welcomed US President Barack Obama’s call to identify moderate elements of the Taleban and encourage them to reconcile with the Afghan government.
Obama’s call “was good news because this has been the stand of the Afghan government,” Karzai told a gymnasium full of Afghan women during a speech to commemorate International Women’s Day.
Obama said in an interview with The New York Times published yesterday that there may be opportunities to reach out to moderates in the Taleban, but the situation in Afghanistan is more complicated than the challenges the American military faced in Iraq.
“There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,” Obama said, while cautioning that solutions in Afghanistan will be complicated.
US troops were able to persuade Sunni insurgents in Iraq to cooperate in some instances because they had been alienated by the tactics of Al-Qaeda terrorists.
Karzai warned that there are Taleban fighters who are beyond reconciliation — those who have joined with Al-Qaeda, for instance. But he said talks should go forward “with those who are afraid to come back to their country, or who feel they have no choice but to stay with the Taleban for various reasons. They are welcome.”
Obama cautioned that Afghanistan is a less-governed region than Iraq with a history of fierce independence among tribes, creating a tough set of circumstances for the United States to deal with.
Obama last month ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan to bolster the record 38,000 American forces already in the country. He has promised to increase the US focus on Afghanistan and away from Iraq, as the US begins to draw down its forces there.
In the latest violence, a roadside blast killed a NATO service member and wounded two US coalition members in eastern Afghanistan yesterday.
