United States Aids Taliban to Attend Talks on Making Peace (443 hits)
The United States’ effort to support preliminary talks with the Karzai government might reflect growing pessimism that the buildup of American forces will defeat the Taliban.
By THOM SHANKER, DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT
BRUSSELS — United States-led forces are permitting the movement of senior Taliban leaders to attend initial peace talks in Kabul, the clearest indication of American support for high-level discussions aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, senior NATO and Obama administration officials said. While the talks involve senior members of the Taliban, officials emphasized that they were preliminary, and that they could not tell how serious the insurgents — or the weak government of President Hamid Karzai — were about reaching an accord.