Taliban willing to talk peace with U.S.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Taliban announced yesterday that it will open an office in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar to hold talks with the United States, an unprecedented step toward a peace process that might lead to a winding down of the 10-year war in Afghanistan.

U.S. and Taliban representatives have met secretly several times over the past year in Europe and in the Gulf region, but this is the first time the Islamist insurgent group has publicly expressed willingness for substantive negotiations.

In recent months, the idea of a Taliban political office in the Qatari capital of Doha has become a central element in U.S. efforts to draw the insurgents into such talks. The idea is to give the Taliban more legitimacy to negotiate in a location that presumably would at least partly shield them from Pakistani pressure.

Asked about the Taliban announcement, White House spokesman Jay Carney welcomed "any step . . . of the Afghan-led process toward reconciliation." He noted that "peace cannot come to Afghanistan without a political settlement."

But negotiations could falter if they do not sufficiently involve President Hamid Karzai's government, which the Taliban has dismissed as a puppet regime.

Karzai's inner circle derailed last year's behind-the-scenes talks, and the Afghan leader agreed only grudgingly to the idea of the Taliban's setting up a liaison office in Qatar.

Another potential spoiler is Pakistan, which houses most of the Taliban leadership as well as the Haqqani network, which carries out major attacks in Kabul. Pakistan believes it should have a say in any talks involving Afghanistan, which it fears will develop an alliance with its archrival, India.

Pakistan has rejected U.S. requests to mount an offensive against the Haqqani network, and relations between the two countries are at an all-time low following a cross-border incident that resulted in NATO airstrikes killing 24 Pakistani soldiers.

As the United States begins to draw down the nearly 100,000 forces it has in Afghanistan, the Obama administration wants to use its current extensive military campaign and an acknowledged but incomplete plan for a long-term American presence in the country as leverage to draw the Taliban into talks with Karzai representatives.

The likelihood that the Taliban will remain a potent fighting force after most foreign forces leave by the end of 2014 is driving the United States and NATO to seek even an incomplete bargain with the insurgents that would keep them talking with the Kabul government.

The gradual process of handing over areas of the country to Afghan security control would ideally be marshaled toward encouraging peace talks, by identifying areas where a cease-fire could be tested, a senior administration official told The Associated Press last week.