Karzai reaches out to Taliban

Published 10:01 pm Saturday, September 29, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai on Saturday offered to meet with the Taliban leader and give militants a government position only hours after a suicide bomber in army disguise attacked a military bus, killing 30 people, nearly all of them Afghan soldiers.

Strengthening a call for negotiations he has made with increasing frequency in recent weeks, Karzai said he was willing to meet with the reclusive leader Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister and factional warlord leader.

“If I find their address, there is no need for them to come to me, I’ll personally go there and get in touch with them,” Karzai said. “Esteemed Mullah, sir, and esteemed Hekmatyar, sir, why are you destroying the country?”

Karzai said he has contacts with Taliban militants through tribal elders but that there are no direct and open government communication channels with the fighters. “If a group of Taliban or a number of Taliban come to me and say, ‘President, we want a department in this or in that ministry or we want a position as deputy minister … and we don’t want to fight anymore,’ … If there will be a demand and a request like that to me, I will accept it because I want conflicts and fighting to end in Afghanistan,” Karzai said.

“I wish there would be a demand as easy as this. I wish that they would want a position in the government. I will give them a position,” he said.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has said it does not support negotiations with Taliban fighters, labeling them as terrorists, although the U.N. and NATO have said an increasing number of Taliban are interested in laying down their arms. NATO’s ambassador to Afghanistan said the alliance would look into the possibility of talks.

Karzai earlier this month renewed a call for talks with the Taliban, and a spokesman for the militant group initially said the fighters might be open to negotiations. But spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi later said foreign troops must first leave the country — a demand Karzai said Saturday he would not meet.

Saturday’s explosion — the second deadliest since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 — ripped off the roof of the bus and tore out its sides in Kabul, leaving a charred hull of burnt metal. Police and soldiers climbed trees to retrieve body parts. Nearby businesses also were damaged.

“Whoever did this was against people, against humanity, definitely against Islam. A man who calls himself Muslim will not blow up innocent people in the middle of Ramadan,” the Muslim holy month.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed the militant group was responsible for the blast.

The U.S. military released the names of soldiers who were died last week either in Afghanistan or in U.S. hospitals as result of injuries there. The names released were Army Pfc. Mathew D. Taylor, 21, of Cameron Park, Calif., Army Pfc. Christopher F. Pfeifer, 21, of Spalding, Neb., and Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Charles Luke Milam, 26, Littleton, Colo.