The United States believes reports about secret talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are exaggerated, a senior US official said, after President Hamid Karzai described them as "unofficial contacts". Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said in Berlin on Monday that Karzai has made it clear his government has been in contact with members of the Taliban on a continuing basis, but warned against over-emphasising those contacts.
"The reports greatly exceed the reality," Holbrooke, the senior US official for Pakistan and Afghanistan, told journalists and German political leaders. "It's the press 'flavour of the month' to write about this subject." The Washington Post reported last week that Taliban representatives taking part in meetings were authorised to speak for the Quetta Shura, the Afghan Taliban organisation based in Pakistan, and its leader, Mullah Omar.
A senior US administration official said in Washington recently there had been a series of what he called "engagements" between Afghan officials and the Taliban in the past few months. The United States supports reconciliation efforts aimed at ending a 9-year-old war that has worsened despite the presence of nearly 150,000 foreign troops.
President Barack Obama is facing a mid-term election next month, and his Nato allies are under pressure at home to end the war. More than 2,000 foreign troops have died since 2001 when the Taliban were ousted by US-backed Afghan forces, more than half of those in the last two years.
Holbrooke said although Washington was not taking part in the talks with the Taliban, it supported them as long as those who eventually rejoined the political system renounced al Qaeda, laid down their arms and participated in the constitution with particular attention to the role of minorities and women. "If people do that, there's room for them," he said. Karzai told CNN's Larry King Live in an interview to be broadcast later on Monday that his government had "unofficial contacts" with the Taliban over possible negotiations. But there were no direct negotiations for the moment, he said.
"We have been talking to the Taliban as countrymen to countrymen talk... Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address, but rather unofficial, personal contacts have been going on for quite some time," Karzai said.
"No official contacts with a known entity that reports to a body of the Taliban and comes back and reports to us regularly, that hasn't happened yet," he said. Karzai has long pushed for talks and his spokesman has acknowledged two years of sporadic contacts with the Taliban. He recently formed a peace council, including politicians and former warlords, as a step toward negotiations.