KABUL- The United States and other foreign powers are engaged in preliminary talks with the Taliban about a possible settlement to the near decade-long war in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, the first official confirmation of US involvement in negotiations.
Diplomats have already said there have been months of preliminary talks between the two sides, and Karzai, who is a strong advocate of peace talks, has long said Afghans are in contact with insurgent groups.
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The US Embassy in Kabul declined immediate comment.
Karzai was speaking the day after the UN Security Council split the
UN sanctions list for Taliban and al-Qaida figures into two, which
envoys said could help induce the Taliban into talks on a peace deal in
Afghanistan.
Despite hopes that talks with the Taliban could provide the political
underpinning for the US staged withdrawal from Afghanistan, the
discussions are still not at the stage where they can be a deciding
factor.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said earlier this month there could be
political talks with the Taliban by the end of this year, if the NATO
alliance kept making military advances on the ground, putting pressure
on the insurgents.
There are also many Afghans, among them women's and civil society
activists, who fear talks with the insurgents could undo much of the
progress they have made since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban government.
The United States is on the verge of announcing a "substantial" drawdown
of American troops from Afghanistan, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
said on Friday.
"There's going to be a drawdown. I am confident that it will be one
that's substantial. I certainly hope so," the leading Senate Democrat
said during an interview with PBS Newshour.
There currently are about 100,000 US troops fighting in Afghanistan, up
from about 34,000 when President Barack Obama took office in 2009.