Peace talks with Taliban underway: Karzai
KABUL (PAN): The Afghan government and its international supporters, in an effort to end the ongoing conflict, are in peace negotiations with Taliban insurgents, President Hamid Karzai has said.
"We are in direct talks with some of the Taliban. At the same time, there are also contacts by our international partners," the president said in an interview with a British TV channel late on Wednesday.
They were trying to put the contacts together and be well-informed about the reconciliation drive at all levels, Karzai told Channel 4 News. "There are contacts (between the British and Americans) with the Taliban."
Through the High Peace Council, which was set up last year, the Afghan government was holding talks with some Taliban members, he said. "The contacts don't get to a fixed address, unfortunately, because that address is not there."
He believed the dialogue would take two to three years to yield concrete results.
While accusing the Western media of overstating the magnitude of corruption in his administration, he insisted that allegations about his brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, were "absolutely wrong and politically motivated".
Conceding that Afghanistan's largest private-sector bank, Kabul Bank, is in crisis because of corruption, the president said that financial institutions in the United States and Britain had faced similar situations.
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