President Karzai, negotiations and the UN

I think the Afghan president's offer is meant to express a simple desire for a reasonable peace--which I have no doubt he wants. Moreover the offer should help gain internal and international support. But note the conditions in the offer which the president clearly would not have expected the Taliban to acccept:

President Hamid Karzai yesterday [Sept. 29] offered to meet 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 there are no direct and open government communication channels with the fighters. Omar's whereabouts are unknown, although Karzai has claimed he is in Quetta, Pakistan, a militant hotbed across the border from Afghanistan's Kandahar province.

"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 any more [emphasis added]' ... 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...

The conditions were clearly unacceptable to the Taliban who have promptly rejected the president's suggestions:

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents rejected President Hamid Karzai's offer of peace talks on Sunday, citing the presence of foreign troops, a Taliban spokesman said...

...[President Karzai has] excluded any preconditions such as the withdrawal of nearly 50,000 troops under the command of NATO and the U.S. military, as demanded by the insurgents.

Karzai said U.S. President George W. Bush and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had both supported the idea of peace talks when he met them in the U.S. this month...

Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters from an undisclosed location that talks with Kabul were out of the question.

"Karzai government is a dummy government. It has no authority so why should we waste our time and effort," Yousuf said.

"Until American and NATO troops are out of Afghanistan, talks with Karzai government are not possible."..

The Canadian government, sensibly, is singing from the same songbook (I wonder if the Canadian Forces wrote President Karzai's appeal?):

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the Taliban will have to renounce violence and accept the NATO mission in Afghanistan if it wants to work with the Afghan government.

MacKay was speaking at an enrolment ceremony for new military personnel in Halifax as Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday [Sept. 29] renewed his call for talks with the Taliban after a deadly suicide bombing in Kabul.

But MacKay said any co-operation must include the Taliban's acceptance that NATO forces aren't leaving the country any time soon...

No good can come from this:

In Ottawa, Liberal defence critic Denis Coderre said he will make an unauthorized fact-finding trip to Afghanistan after his request to visit the troops has been consistently ignored by the Harper government.

"(Afghanistan) is a major issue for the Canadian people," Coderre said yesterday. "I think that for the sake of the debate it's important that I go. Since I couldn't get an answer I decided to go on my own."..

But this seems good to me:

Canada will call on the United Nations to dramatically raise the profile of the global effort in Afghanistan, saying the world body should name an envoy of major stature to the country -- in the same way the global Middle East peace process has named former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier will make the case for stepping up the UN's Afghan role when he delivers Canada's address at the annual General Assembly summit on Tuesday. Other countries, principally France, Norway, Spain and the United States [there's also the UK - MC], also seek enhanced UN leadership in Afghanistan, believing there is room to better co-ordinate reconstruction and other help currently arriving from around the world...

"The UN mission [one of its largest] is already there, and Canada is there under UN mandate, but we believe that the UN itself has to be more active in the co-ordination process."..

Maybe Paddy Ashdown is the person for the job.

I wonder if the NDP will support President Karzai's efforts and the suggestion the UN take a broader role in Afghanistan. Just kidding. Especially if the NDP are aware of this:

UN head in Afstan wants more NATO troops

Update (from Damian Penny): today's Globe and Mail reports that the Taliban are divided over Karzai's offer:

"It's a joke," Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told Reuters early yesterday. But the insurgents' spokesman sounded less confident about dismissing the idea of negotiations hours later, when contacted by The Globe and Mail.

"My bosses have not decided on a policy about this," Mr. Ahmadi said by telephone from an undisclosed location. "They will think about it, and when the Taliban has a decision, I will call you right away."

The fact that the Taliban's main spokesman could shift his position on such a crucial matter so quickly is an indicator of a larger conflict within the insurgent ranks about the idea of negotiations.

A member of the Taliban's ruling council recently told one of his guests in Quetta, Pakistan, that the council is divided about how to respond to Mr. Karzai's increasingly urgent calls for talks.

A majority of senior Taliban oppose negotiations, the council member said, but they're having difficulty persuading the minority.

If this story is accurate, Karzai is a much more shrewd politician than anyone - especially Canadian critics of the Afghan mission - give him credit for.