Taliban’s Turn?

Taliban's Turn?

Flexibility has never been a notable feature of the Taliban's worldview. But the London-based Royal United Services Institute released a report this week suggesting the opposite.

Based on interviews with four important Taliban leaders, researchers from the RUSI say that the Taliban leadership might be ready to dissociate the organisation from

al-Qaeda, one of the principal demands of the United States.

In a major surprise, the report says, the Taliban might be willing to accept the residual presence of American military forces in Afghanistan well beyond 2014, when the Obama administration plans to end the US combat role there. Conditions, of course, will apply.

The RUSI report comes as the US steps up its diplomatic efforts to engage the Taliban and find a political solution to the long-festering war in Afghanistan. Sceptics would want to hold their breath.

The Taliban had opportunities in the past to cut a deal with the US by separating itself from al-Qaeda. Washington reached out to the Taliban in the wake of the bombings on US embassies in East Africa in 1998 by al-Qaeda, which had secured a sanctuary in Afghanistan.

After the 9/11 attacks on Washington and New York, the Bush administration embarked on an intensive effort to separate the Taliban from al-Qaeda. The supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, did not bite and was willing to accept the consequences.

The RUSI report now says the interviews "revealed for the first time the emerging consensus of the Taliban leadership, a far more pragmatic picture of the Taliban than has previously been made public, with the Taliban willing to take part in peace negotiations in exchange for political leverage after 2014."

The Taliban apparently will not negotiate with the Hamid Karzai government but is ready to engage the US. The Taliban's flexibility in the proposed negotiations with the US, the RUSI report says, is subject entirely to the approval of Mullah Omar.

... contd.

ALSO READ

For democracy and bijli, uninterrupted supply

Four years later

Victor's tribulations

Addressing the disenchantment with Doha