UK’s Top General: West Should Have Talked to Taliban

Local Editor

The West should have negotiated with the Taliban more than a decade ago, soon after they were toppled, Britain's senior general in Afghanistan said on Saturday after recent efforts to start peace talks collapsed in ignominy.

General Nick Carter told the London-based Guardian newspaper that an opportunity to bring peace to Afghanistan was missed when the Taliban were on the defensive in 2002 after they were ousted following the 9/11 attacks.
"The Taliban were on the run," he said. "At that stage, if we had been very prescient, we might have spotted that a final political solution... would have involved getting all Afghans to sit at the table and talk about their future."

Carter, deputy commander of the NATO-led coalition, acknowledged it was "easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight" but that Afghanistan's problems were political issues that "are only ever solved by people talking to each other".
The search for a peace settlement with the Taliban is now a priority for the Afghan government and international powers as the insurgency still rages across many parts of the country and US-led troops prepare to exit next year.

US President Barack Obama recently said he anticipated "a lot of bumps in the road" during the peace process but that it was the only way to end the violence in Afghanistan.
More than 3,300 coalition personnel have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, peaking at 711 deaths in 2010, according to the independent icasualties.org website.
Carter said that Afghan forces had proven themselves in battle and were ready to provide security after 100,000 NATO troops depart by the end of 2014.

"What the opponents of the Afghan government now realize is they are likely to be up against capable Afghan security forces who are going to be here in perpetuity," he said.
"I think that there is every chance people will realize that talking is the answer to this problem."
Peace talks with the Taliban were previously anathema to many Western leaders, with then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown vowing in 2007 that London "will not enter into any negotiations with these people".

Source: News agencies, Edited by website team