Topic: Taliban's Demands Stall Afghan Talks

USA Today
September 19, 2007
Pg. 8
Among Stipulations: Expel All Foreign Troops
By Wire reports
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government is ready for peace talks with the Taliban but will not accept preconditions demanded by the Islamist rebels such as the withdrawal of all foreign troops, a presidential spokesman said Tuesday.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai repeated his call to Taliban insurgents to enter peace talks in a speech on the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
The Taliban said it would only accept talks if all of the roughly 50,000 foreign troops — including 24,000 U.S. troops — left first, a new constitution was accepted, and strict Islamic law is imposed.
"The Afghan government is not open to negotiations with any preconditions," presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said at a news conference.
The only promise the government would give the Taliban ahead of any talks was a guarantee for the safety of rebel negotiators.
The Taliban said it was sticking to its demands. "The withdrawal of the foreign troops is a must, also the imposition of real Islamic law and the rewriting of the constitution," Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told the Reuters news service by telephone from an unknown location. "As long as foreign forces are in Afghanistan, negotiations are useless," he said. "We don't want to talk to foreigners; we want to talk to Afghans to bring peace and security."
Violence has risen the past two years as the Taliban insurgency has spread from the south to areas previously considered safe. The increase has come despite heavy losses inflicted by the Afghan army and Western forces.
Afghan and U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in 2001 after it refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The Taliban regrouped in mountains along the border with Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan untouched by the U.S.-led invasion force — places where the Afghan government lacks control.
The Taliban has also adapted more sophisticated tactics imported by al-Qaeda fighters from Iraq, such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs.
Also Tuesday:
•U.S. airstrikes targeting a meeting of Taliban leaders killed a commander involved in the kidnappings of 23 South Koreans two months ago, Afghan officials said.
Mullah Abdullah Jan was among 12 killed in the strike on a mud-brick housing compound overnight, said Ghazni's provincial police chief, Gen. Ali Shah Ahmadzai.
The U.S.-led coalition said "several" suspected militants were killed and four detained in an operation that included gunfire and airstrikes. The coalition could not immediately confirm Jan was killed.
Jan would be the fifth Taliban commander allegedly involved in the abductions who has been reported killed in recent days.
•NATO reported that one of its soldiers had died in an explosion. It did not provide further details.
•Karzai pleaded with Canada not to withdraw its 2,500 troops when its mission ends in early 2009, saying to do so would only help deliver his country back to the Taliban, The Globe and Mail newspaper of Toronto reported.
Seventy Canadian soldiers have died in Afghanistan.