A major report finds some members of the Taliban are ready to negotiate a peace deal based on a long-term US presence in Afghanistan, but not under Hamid Karzai’s government.
The Taliban leadership regret their past association with al-Qaeda and would renounce the terrorist organisation altogether following a political agreement and/or ceasefire, according to a report published by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
However any political agreement or peace plan would not be negotiated with the current Karzai government, as the Taliban does not trust the government to run a fair election and is critical of its record of corruption.
The RUSI report, based on interviews with Taliban officials and senior peace mediators, concluded that any ceasefire would need strong Islamic justification and could not hint at any form of surrender. They proposed that under any agreement, five US military bases could operate in Kandahar, Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul to help rebuild Afghanistan up to 2024.
Four unnamed Taliban figures, two of whom were ministers in the former Taliban government and are still close to the inner circle of leadership, spoke to researchers at RUSI and formed the basis of the paper, Taliban Perspectives on Reconciliation.
One is described as being “closely associated” with Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader while another is described as “a senior former mujahideen commander and lead negotiator for the Taliban”, although not part of the movement itself.
While the Taliban is open to an agreement with the US, and severing links with al-Qaeda in exchange with political recognition, the continuation of drone attacks both within Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan “would severely complicate the task of maintaining the base’s allegiance and the leadership’s ability to control popular outrage”, the report concludes.
The Taliban has long been opposed to negotiating with Karzai’s government and does not recognise Afghanistan’s constitution approved in 2003.
However US officials have said that they see signs that the Taliban’s hostility to peace talks may be waning or splintering.
Violence in Afghanistan is at its worst levels since US.-backed forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 and the West is eager to pursue such negotiations, given plans to withdraw most of a currently 100,000-strong NATO-led foreign force by the end of 2014.