Ex-UN envoy rues Taliban arrests

Kabul : The arrests of top Taliban figures in Pakistan abruptly halted secret UN contacts with the insurgency at a time when the efforts were gathering momentum, the UN's former envoy to Afghanistan said yesterday.

Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat who just stepped down from the UN post here in the Afghan capital, said the discussions that he and others from the UN had with senior Taliban members began in the spring of 2009.

He criticised Pakistan for arresting the Taliban's No 2 and other members of the insurgency, saying the Pakistanis surely knew the roles these figures had in efforts to find a political resolution to the 8-year-old war. Pakistan denies the arrests were linked to reconciliation talks.

"There was an increase in intensity of contacts, but this process came to a halt following the arrests that took place in Pakistan," Eide said in a telephone interview from his home outside Oslo.

Peace conference

Last month's detention of Mullah Abdul Gani Baradar — second in the Taliban only to Mullah Mohammad Omar — infuriated Afghan President Hamid Karzai, one of Karzai's advisers said. Besides the ongoing talks, the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, said Baradar had "given a green light" to participating in a three-day peace "jirga" or conference that Karzai is hosting next month.

However, General Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistani military, said yesterday that Baradar's arrest, which he said was a joint operation with the US, was not connected to any peace talks. "Reconciliation or talks have nothing to do with the arrest of Baradar," he said. "It has nothing to do with the talks. Serious arrests are being made continuously."

Eide, whose comments were first reported yesterday by the BBC, said there was a lull in contacts between the UN and the insurgents around last summer's Afghan presidential election, but then they intensified.

"It's quite clear that the level of contact was increasing over the last few months to one point and that's when you had the number of arrests in Pakistan," he said.

Eide said there were many channels of communication with the Taliban, including those involving Karzai's representative. Eide said the negotiations must be led by the Afghans, but that contacts have been made by other parties. "I know many have tried," he said, declining to identify those who have reached out to the Taliban.

Eide said the UN had met senior figures in the Taliban leadership as well as people who have the authority from the Quetta Shura to engage in such discussions. Named after a city in Pakistan, the Quetta Shura is the ruling council of the Taliban.

He said he believed that the talks, which he said were still in the early stages, could not have taken place without the blessing of Omar, the Taliban leader.

"I cannot say with certainty, but I'm pretty sure," Eide said. "I find it hard to believe that these contacts could take place without his knowledge."

Pakistan wants to be in control, analyst says

While Pakistan rejected yesterday the suggestion that the arrest of senior Afghan Taliban members in Pakistan may have disrupted talks with UN representatives, an analyst says Pakistan has long seen the Afghan Taliban as a tool to promote its interests in Afghanistan, where it wants to see a friendly government in power and to limit the influence of old rival India.

With momentum building for some sort of talks with the Taliban to end a war Western commanders say they cannot win militarily, Pakistan wants to be in control of any reconciliation process to promote its aims, the analyst says.