Taliban Favour Peace Talks

The former Afghan president said that the taliban favour talks and that it should be seriously considered. Well, you can easily observe how negiotiating peace deals with the taliban works out just by looking across the border to Pakistan, not too well. Reuters

If the taliban are making "peace" gestures we should go after them harder. For the taliban there is no such thing as peace with NATO, only truces. They are weakened and are seeking time to rebuild.

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban have shown a desire for a political dialogue and serious efforts should be made to establish talks and end the insurgency, a former Afghan president said on Thursday.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, a bearded 65-year-old who now leads the opposition in parliament, said he had established contact with the Taliban several months ago and had received a letter in recent days containing "some encouraging messages" from the Taliban addressed to the alliance of parties he leads.

Rabbani said the militants expressed a desire for a political solution to the conflict in which more than 12,000 people have been killed since 2006 alone.

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He did not say who in the Taliban had sent the messages.

U.S. and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001 after the hardline Islamist movement refused to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Since then, the Taliban have repeatedly rejected olive branches offered by President Hamid Karzai, who has led the country since the removal of the hardline Islamist movement.

In their messages, the Taliban said they would accept all international conventions, would not oppose education for girls and would oppose Afghanistan being used as a base to threaten any other country, Rabbani said.

The Taliban also wanted friendly ties and cooperation with Muslim and non-Muslim countries, he added.