Kabul: Afghan President Hamid Karzai leaked details of the US-Taliban secret talks details.
Infuriated that Washington met secretly at least three times with a representative of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Afghan government intentionally leaked details of the covert meetings, scuttling the talks and sending the Taliban intermediary into hiding.
In a series of interviews with diplomats, current and former Taliban, Afghan government officials and a close childhood friend of the intermediary, Tayyab Aga is hiding in Europe, and is afraid to go back to Pakistan because of fears of reprisals. The US has had no direct contact with him for months.
A senior US official acknowledged that the talks went off because of the leak and that Agha, while alive, had disappeared. The US will continue to pursue talks, the official said. Current and former US officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks.
The United States acknowledged the talks after Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who apparently fears being sidelined by US-Taliban talks, confirmed published accounts about them in June, but has never publicly detailed the content, format or participants. The first was held in late 2010 followed by at least two other meetings in early spring of this year, the former US official said. The sessions were held in Germany and Qatar, he said.
A childhood friend of Agha’s who spoke on condition he should not be identified because he feared retaliation, said Agha was in Germany. A diplomat in the region said Agha fled to a European country after his contacts with the US were revealed.
Collapse of the direct talks between Agha and the US officials probably spoiled the best chance yet at reaching Omar, considered the linchpin to ending the Taliban fight against the US-backed government in Afghanistan. The contacts were preliminary but had begun to bear fruit, Afghan and US officials said.
Perhaps most importantly they offered the tantalizing prospect of a brokered agreement between the US and the Taliban one that would allow the larger reconciliation of the Taliban into Afghanistan political life to move forward. The US has not committed to any such deal, but the Taliban wants security assurances from the US.
The talks were deliberately revealed by someone within the presidential palace, where Karzai’s office is located, said a Western and an Afghan official. The reason for the leak was Karzai’s animosity toward the US and fear that any agreement Washington brokered would undermine his authority, they said.
Pakistan had also been kept in the dark about the talks, people knowledgeable about them said. An Afghan official with contacts with the Taliban said the insurgents decided not to tell Pakistan about the meetings with the United States. At the time of the leak, Washington had already offered small concessions that the US intended as “confidence-building measures,” a former senior US official said. They were aimed at developing a rapport and moving talks forward, said a current US official on condition he not be identified because of the sensitivity of the topic.
The concessions included treating the Taliban and al-Qaida differently under international sanctions. The Taliban argued that while al-Qaida is focused on worldwide jihad against the West, Taliban militants have focused on Afghanistan and have shown little interest in attacking targets abroad.
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