Taliban, Afghanistan leaders in unofficial talks: Report

The Taliban and representatives of Afghan president Hamid Karzai have held secret talks in aimed at a peace process that failed to take off.

Though the discussions with members of the Afghan High Peace Council had thus far been unofficial and preliminary, they are being interpreted as an attempt to agree on conditions for formal talks that could lead to a peace process.

Attempts at a peace process had been derailed  by Afghanistan's vehement oppostion to the Taliban having opened an office in Qatar bearing the board of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which the Afghans claimed undermined the governmentin Kabul.

A former Taliban diplomat, Habibullah Fauzi, now a member of Karzai's High Peace Council, told news agency AFP that some individuals on the peace council had met Taliban on an individual basis, though he did not give details as to the identities or timing of the meeting.

He added he had also heard reports of meetings in Saudi Arabia between High Peace Council members and Taliban who were visiting the country for Islamic pilgrimages of Umrah and Hajj.

"The Afghan government certainly is in contact with certain leaders and certain figures among the Taliban," Afghan foreign ministry spokesman Janan Musazai said Sunday at a news conference in Kabul.

Meanwhile, according to Pakistan's The Nation newspaper, nothing could bring greater relief to the troubled region, particularly Pakistan and Afghanistan that were constantly suffering terrorist attacks than the return of peaceful conditions.

It added, what could work wonders for the region was the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan reaching out to each other in forging a more effective counter-terrorism strategy.

Meanwhile, president Barack Obama, at a loss over the best way to make an honourable exit from Afghanistan and also at same time, leave behind a stable governance structure, had been trying to impress on both Hamid Karzai and Nawaz Sharif the need to reach an understanding to make that possible.

He plans to hold a joint meeting with the Afghan president and Pakistan prime minister when they visited the US to attend the UN General Assembly meeting next month.

Karzai would also visit Islamabad later this month in response to an invitation from Nawaz with the aim making some headway in sorting out the differences that had kept Pak-Afghan relations strained and that defied numerous attempts at resolution.