Talking to the Enemy

For John, BLUF:  Maybe we will have negotiations with the Taliban, who allowed al Qaeda to operation in Afghanistan prior to 9/11.

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Reporter James Kitfield (national security and foreign affairs correspondent) tells us:  "Here's Why Taliban Talks Will Fail".  The lede from Defense One:

If there is anyone who has a right to be skeptical of the Taliban’s “good faith” in reaching a negotiated peace in Afghanistan, it is top Afghan peace negotiator Salahuddin Rabbani. He’s the chairman of the Afghan High Peace Council, established by the Afghan government in 2010 to reach out to the Taliban with an olive branch. The Council was initially led by Rabbani’s father and former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was assassinated by a Taliban suicide bomber in September 2011.

Here is a discussion of these "negotiations" from our Ambassador James F Dobbins, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, from 27 June of this year.  And here is a second link to the transcript.

Press:  [What is the] concern [in] India? [Inaudible] talks with Taliban? Without [inaudible] of terrorists, do you believe that an improvement in Indo relations with Pakistan [or] Taliban [will pass]?

Ambassador Dobbins:  We certainly agree that there’s no prospect for improvement in relations with the Taliban or any agreement with the Taliban unless the issue of terrorism is directly addressed.  We set as a precondition for beginning talks with the Taliban that they make a statement that at least began to distance themselves from international terrorism and they did so.  They made a statement a week ago Tuesday in which they said they opposed the use of Afghan territory for attacks on anybody else.  But that’s I think from our standpoint sufficient to begin talking to them, but it’s not going to be sufficient as the basis for any agreement.

We’ve made clear, Secretary Kerry made clear when he was here that any agreement would need to include a cessation of hostilities, a respect for the Afghan constitution, and a severing of all ties with al-Qaida and similar terrorist organizations.

I would stress that the negotiations toward this objective will principally be negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban.  Not between the United States and the Taliban.  But we hope that our dialogue with them, if it begins, can contribute to that and we’ll be focused particularly on the topic that you raised which is severing their ties with al-Qaida. It will be one of the first issues we will raise is how do they intend to do that.  Not just what they intend to say about it but how they actually intend to go about severing those ties.

So, what are the negotiations all about?  Or, are we just "Chatty Cathy" in all this?

Regards  —  Cliff