Karzai: Drop Taliban From UN Blacklist

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he will press for Taliban names to be removed from a U.N. blacklist, as peace overtures intensified Monday heading into a London conference. The NATO military commander in Afghanistan has also voiced support for negotiated peace.
The Afghan leader will win backing from world powers at the conference on Thursday for his plan to offer money and jobs to cajole Taliban fighters into laying down arms, according to U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke.

Karzai, who first disclosed his peace overtures last week, added Monday following talks with Turkish and Pakistani leaders that he would seek to have Taliban leaders who break with al-Qaida and lay down their arms struck from the U.N. blacklist.

"I will be making a statement at the conference in London to the effect of removing Taliban names from the U.N. sanctions list," the Afghan leader told reporters.

The idea had previously met resistance but "as we are talking today, there is more willingness that this can be reconsidered," he said.

The list targeting Taliban and al-Qaida individuals and entities contains some 500 names, including 142 linked to the Afghan extremist group, according the Austrian U.N. mission that maintains the list.

The move is seen as another step toward persuading militants to accept peace talks.

The White House was noncommittal about Karzai's latest proposal, but noted U.S. military leaders had drawn parallels between the Afghan leader's reintegration proposal and those the United States used with some Iraqi groups.

Holbrooke, the special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan said the 65 nations meeting in London on Thursday would back Kabul's proposal to set up a reintegration fund to persuade Taliban fighters to lay down arms.

"The reintegration program that President (Hamid) Karzai is announcing and the international community will support is an opportunity for people fighting at the local commander level to stop fighting, come in from the cold and rejoin Afghan society --- if they renounce al-Qaida," he said.

The NATO military commander in Afghanistan has also voiced support for negotiated peace.

"As a Soldier, my personal feeling is that there's been enough fighting," U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in an interview with Britain's Financial Times published Monday.

"I believe that a political solution to all conflicts is the inevitable outcome. And it's the right outcome."

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites