The conference said militants who joined the peace process should be removed from a UN blacklist that currently imposes travel and financial restrictions on some 137 people associated with the Taleban. It also said that insurgents who want to take part must cut their ties with foreign terrorist groups — a clear reference to Al-Qaeda.
The recommendations followed three days of deliberations among some 1,500 delegates aimed at ending nine years of fighting that followed the hard-line Taleban regime's ouster by US-backed forces in 2001.
Although the resolution was phrased in general terms — it did not specifically refer to the Taleban — it should allow the president to claim a mandate to pursue his peace plans.
That could boost Karzai's standing, battered by corruption in his government, his fraud-tainted re-election last year, and escalating militant violence despite a US troop surge.
But any reconciliation talks were likely to remain a long way off. No active member of the Taleban and other militant groups took part in the conference in Kabul. Taleban suicide attackers attempted to disrupt the opening of the conference, or jirga, on Wednesday.
In closing remarks to delegates, Karzai called on insurgents to take advantage of the opportunity to forge a lasting peace. "I want to call on the Taleban and Hizb-e-Islami to use this opportunity to join with us and join in the reconstruction of this country," Karzai said. Hizb-e-Islami is a smaller insurgent group allied to the Taleban.
He said the jirga had provided a set of instructions for the government.
"It has shown us a path. We will follow that path step by step and, God willing, we will reach the end," he said.
Taleban leaders, however, insist there will be no talks with the government until US-led foreign troops have left the country — a condition Karzai cannot accept. He wants to offer rank-and-file insurgents amnesty and other incentives to lay down their arms, and to hold talks with top Taleban leaders if they renounce Al-Qaeda and vow to uphold the constitution.
Washington supports overtures to lower-rung insurgents, but is skeptical of a major political initiative with Taleban leaders until militant forces are weakened on the battlefield. On Friday, NATO said its forces had killed a top Taleban commander for Kandahar city, Mullah Zergay, in nearby Zhari district last week when a raid to capture him sparked a gunfight.
