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Karzai
offers govt posts to Taliban
WSN Network
Kabul: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday offered to
personally meet Taliban leader Mullah Omar for peace talks and give
the militants a high position in a government ministry as a way to
end the rising insurgency in Afghanistan.
Reiterating a call
for negotiations he has made with increasing frequency over the last
several weeks, Karzai also said he was willing to meet with
factional warlord leader and former prime minister Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar.
“If I find their
address, there is no need for them to come to me, I’ll personally go
there and get in touch with them,” Karzai said. “Esteemed Mullah,
sir, and esteemed Hekmatyar, sir, why are you destroying the
country?” Karzai said he has contacts with Taliban militants through
tribal elders but that there are no direct and open government
communication channels with the fighters.
“If a group of
Taliban or a number of Taliban come to me and say, ‘President, we
want a department in this or in that ministry or we want a position
as deputy minister... and we don’t want to fight anymore... If there
will be a demand and a request like that to me, I will accept it
because I want conflicts and fighting to end in Afghanistan,” Karzai
said. “I wish there would be a demand as easy as this. I wish that
they would want a position in the government. I will give them a
position,” he said. The Taliban, however, rejected the offer.
3
October, 2007
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