Afghan delegates support Taliban talks

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Afghan tribal elders and religious leaders agreed on Friday to make peace with the Taliban, handing President Hamid Karzai a mandate to open negotiations with the insurgents who are fighting foreign forces and his government.
Mr Karzai had called the “peace jirga” to win national support for his plan to offer an amnesty, cash and job incentives to Taliban foot soldiers while arranging asylum for top figures in a second country and getting their names struck off a UN and US blacklist.
“Now the path is clear, the path that has been shown and chosen by you, we will go on that step-by-step and this path will Inshallah, take us to our destination,” he told the delegates gathered in a tent under heavy security. He urged the Taliban, who have virtually fought tens of thousands of US-led Nato forces and the Afghan army to a bloody stalemate, to stop fighting.
But there were few signs that the Taliban, who have dismissed the jirga as a phoney American-inspired show to perpetuate their involvement in the country, were ready to respond to the peace offer.
The Taliban want the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country before any negotiations can begin. The insurgency is at its most intense since their ouster in 2001 and analysts say there is little reason for them to sue for peace. On Wednesday the militants attacked the opening of the jirga with rockets and gunfire just as Mr Karzai was speaking inside a giant marquee in the west of the capital. On Friday, the President took a helicopter to the tent site to address the closing session.
The outcome of the conference was largely preordained, as the government had hand-picked the delegates and broadly set the parameters of the discussion. The Taliban and other insurgent factions were not invited while the Opposition boycotted the meeting saying it didn’t represent the full spectrum of Afghan politics.
Critics say the results of the jirga are more symbolic than practical, given the disdain with which the Taliban who control large parts of the country have treated the tribal assembly. Some saw it a show of national unity to wring more money out international donors ahead of a conference in July in Kabul.
The 1,600 delegates, chosen to represent Afghan tribes, politics and geography, approved a set of proposals including an appeal to the warring sides to dec-lare a ceasefire. —