WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday that while the United States backed the Taliban integration programme, the offer did not include the group’s top leadership.
Earlier, the Pentagon had expressed similar sentiments about the integration plan approved at a meeting of more than 60 nations in London on Thursday.
Secretary Clinton, who also attended the conference, told America’s National Public Radio network that she understood the military action alone was not enough to win the war in Afghanistan but the London peace proposal was not meant for senior Taliban leaders.
In her interview to NPR, Mrs Clinton acknowledged that most modern conflicts don’t end with a victory on the field of battle and therefore political and development work was essential.
“I think everyone has realised, as we did in Iraq, that you have to begin to go right at the insurgents and peel those off who are willing to renounce violence, renounce Al Qaeda, agree to live by the laws and constitution of Afghanistan and re-enter society,” Mrs Clinton said.
“That is not going to happen with (Taliban chief) Mullah Omar and the like,” she added. “But there are so many fighters in the Taliban that are there, frankly, because it’s a way to make a living in a country where the Taliban pay them more than they can make as a farmer or in some other line of work out in the countryside.”
Earlier, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told a briefing in Washington that the US government was still working to figure out which mid-level Taliban officials it might be possible to integrate into the current Afghan political structure.
He said that top Taliban figures, like the country’s former leader Mullah Omar, would probably be what he called “a bridge too far”.
“Omar is probably the extreme,” said Mr Morrell. “The foot-soldiers are probably the other extreme. The question is what happens to the others. Can they be won over? Can they become a part of the political fabric? And that’s, I think, what we’re all trying to figure out. And I don’t know that we have an answer yet.”
Secretary Clinton’s remarks came a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai told the London conference that he planned to convene a grand Jirga and invite low-level Taliban militants and “disenchanted brothers who are not part of Al Qaeda or other terrorist networks”.
Secretary Clinton claimed that there had already been some progress on reintegration. “There already have been Taliban who have left,” she said, adding that how the reconciliation process evolved “will be a little bit like jazz … we can’t lay it out completely”.
The secretary, however, insisted that the shift in policy towards accommodation of some fighters did not constitute an exit strategy; instead, it was one element of a comprehensive plan.
“You have to have a very tough-minded attitude about this. This is not sweetness and light,” the secretary of state said. “You’re dealing with a very difficult, complex phenomenon.”
In response to a recent remark by Mr Karzai that he expected western troops to be in Afghanistan for the next decade, Mrs Clinton said she did not think “most western troops will be in a combat role”.
“It won’t be like today, where we are putting in thousands more troops, 30,000 from our own and from other countries,” she said.
In Washington, other US officials told the media that it was up to the Afghan government to decide which Taliban leaders could be integrated.
But the Pentagon spokesman said he expected officials in Kabul to make their decisions in consultation with US President Barack Obama.
Mr Morrell indicated that senior Taliban leaders like Mullah Omar who, in his words, “has the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands”, would likely not be acceptable candidates for “reintegration”.
On Tuesday, the United Nations announced it had removed five former Taliban officials, including a former foreign minister, from its list of terrorists, ending restrictions on their travel and bank accounts. That could be a first step toward involving them in a reconciliation process.
Source:dawn.com
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