Karzai says he's met with Taliban to seek peace; Taliban denies it

In Kabul, suicide car bomb kills 4; district overrun

The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 04.07.2007

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai acknowledged for the first time Friday that he has met with Taliban militants in attempts to bring peace to Afghanistan, which is struggling to quell a rising insurgency.

Karzai's assertion — immediately rejected as false by a Taliban spokesman — came as a suicide car bomber killed four people and wounded four others in Kabul and militants overran a district in the volatile southeast.

In the past, Karzai has offered, without success, to hold talks with the fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar and renegade warlord Gulbudin Hekmatyar. Some officials in his government, including provincial governors, are thought to have held informal talks with militants in the south and east, but with little apparent success to calm the insurgency.

"We have had representatives from the Taliban meeting with different bodies of Afghan government for a long time," Karzai told a news conference. "I have had some Taliban coming to speak to me as well."
Karzai did not disclose any details of the meetings, when they took place or who attended.
Hundreds of former members of the hard-line Taliban regime, including a sprinkling of former senior commanders and officials, have reconciled with the government since they were ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

Current rebel leaders have apparently refused to hold talks, and in the past year, thousands more fighters have picked up guns and joined the insurgency, which in 2006 alone left some 4,000 people, mainly militants, dead.

Zabiullah Mujaheed, a purported spokesman for the militants, said that Taliban "do not want to talk to a puppet government."

"Karzai's government has no power and all their policies are designed by America," Mujaheed told The Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location. "If the U.S. wants to negotiate with the Taliban, they should first leave our country."

Speaking at the news conference, Karzai, whose administration is increasingly unpopular because of insecurity in the south and east and continuing poverty, struck a conciliatory tone, urging Afghan militants to lay down weapons and join his government.

"Afghan Taliban are always welcome, they belong to this country. … They are the sons of this soil," Karzai said.

"As they repent, as they regret, as they want to come back to their own country, they are welcome." But he said militants from neighboring countries such as Pakistan "should be destroyed."
"They are destroying our lives, killing our people; they are not welcome and there will be no talks with them," Karzai said.

The Afghan leader often accuses Pakistan of not only providing sanctuary to Taliban but also guiding the rebels in an attempt to wield influence over Afghanistan — charges denied by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in its war on terrorism.

In the latest violence, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at a checkpoint in the west of Kabul after a policeman told the vehicle to stop. Five died, including the bomber, whom Mujaheed claimed was a Taliban militant.