Islamabad » Pakistan will play a major role in peace talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Thursday, apparently trying to dismiss speculation that Kabul was trying to sideline Islamabad, once a close ally of the militants.
Karzai recently made a renewed push to jump-start peace talks with the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until late 2001 and since then has lead a bloody insurgency against the U.S.-backed government in Kabul.
Pakistan has offered to help negotiate with the militants. But many observers believe Afghanistan wants to keep Pakistan out of any talks, suspicious of Islamabad's support of the Taliban government while the militants were in power.
Karzai tried to dispel that speculation during a joint news conference with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as part of a two-day trip to Pakistan -- his first since he was re-elected in a fraud-marred vote last year.
He thanked Gilani "for offering support to Afghanistan's efforts for reconciliation," and added: "Indeed, Pakistan has a significantly important role to play there, and Afghanistan welcomes that role."
"Pakistan is a brother of Afghanistan," he said. "Pakistan is a twin brother of Afghanistan. We are more than twins -- we are conjoined twins."
But such diplomatic hyperbole may mask Kabul's distrust.
Speculation over Pakistan's role in peace talks with the Taliban has increased in recent weeks following Islamabad's February arrest of the group's No. 2 leader in a joint raid with the CIA.
The arrest of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, considered a likely channel in any talks with the top Taliban leadership, came as a surprise. He was one of the first senior Taliban commanders captured by Pakistan -- even though many of the group's leaders are believed to be based in the country.
Critics have accused the Pakistani government of protecting Taliban leaders to maintain good relations with the group in anticipation of Western forces eventually withdrawing from the country -- an allegation denied by Pakistan.
British want more talking » British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called Wednesday for early and substantive political negotiations between the Afghanistan government and the Taliban and other insurgent groups, saying that military successes will never be enough to end the war. Miliband's remarks, made in a speech at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, went far beyond statements by U.S. officials, who have said talks would be better held after the military balance shifts toward the international coalition and the insurgents have agreed to sever ties with al-Qaida and lay down their arms.
Bomb kills 5 » A homemade bomb killed four children and a civilian adult in northeastern Afghanistan on Thursday, NATO forces said. Meanwhile, a NATO service member died in a bomb strike in the south.
Human rights poor » The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has a "poor" human rights record, tarnished by widespread impunity for security forces who commit abuses; violence against women; torture and extra-judicial killings, the State Department said in an annual report.
Sources » Washington Post, AP, McClatchy
