Neighbours Meet to Discuss How to Tackle Taliban Violence

A major push to open serious talks with the Taliban on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border will begin at a summit today of leading political figures from the two countries, as Kabul and Islamabad desperately seek a way out of an overwhelming insurgency.

A "mini-jirga" of 50 people will meet for two days in Islamabad, with the support of the two governments, and will see some delegates calling for the withdrawal of western forces from Afghanistan, as the only way of quelling the Taliban onslaught. Pakistani Taliban, based in the country's tribal border area with Afghanistan, have joined the battle in Afghanistan and also taken on Islamabad.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a participant and a former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, said that the two governments had to drop current conditions that they would only negotiate with those who disarmed and accepted the constitution.

"You talk to people who have taken up arms and are battling you. You just can't be an escapist and talk to only those willing to lay down their arms," said Mohmand. "In the Afghanistan and tribal areas context, it is ridiculous. People don't lay down their arms in this culture."

The Afghan delegation is led by former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, and the Pakistan side is headed by the senior official in charge of the tribal belt, Owais Ghani, governor of the North-West Frontier Province.

It recently emerged that exploratory discussions between officials associated with the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban were held in September in Saudi Arabia and, last week, the Pakistani parliament passed an all-parties resolution that "dialog must now be the highest priority" with its extremists.

Western military commanders and officials have also not only encouraged the negotiations option in Afghanistan but, led by the British, have admitted that they cannot win on the battlefield. "We're supposed to find ways and means to start negotiations between the governments and the dissidents," said Afrasiab Khattak, a delegate and the "peace envoy" of the frontier's provincial administration.

"These problems are, in the ultimate analysis, political problems. Political problems do not have military solutions."

This year has been the most violent in Afghanistan since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001. But signs that western will is collapsing has panicked Afghans, who fear that they are about to be abandoned once again by the international community.