US offers reconciliation for non-violent Taliban

THE HAGUE: The United States offered Taliban fighters who renounce violence in Afghanistan an ‘honourable form of reconciliation’ on Tuesday as part of a revamped strategy to tackle a deepening insurgency.

Traditional US foe Iran, attending an international conference on Afghanistan, pledged help in tackling the huge opium trade in its neighbour but stressed it remained opposed to US and other foreign troops there, Reuters reports.

The conference in the Netherlands is a chance for NATO and other US allies to consult on the Afghan strategy unveiled by President Barack Obama last week stressing the need to cooperate with regional players such as Iran, Pakistan, Russia and India.

‘We must … support efforts by the government of Afghanistan to separate the extremists of al Qaeda and the Taliban from those who have joined their ranks not out of conviction, but out of desperation,’ US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the conference in The Hague.

‘They should be offered an honourable form of reconciliation and reintegration into a peaceful society, if they are willing to abandon violence, break with al Qaeda, and support the constitution,’ Clinton said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed Obama’s ‘fresh, strong and judicious leadership’, but said his government should take the lead in approaches to the Taliban.

‘The policy of reconciliation … can succeed only if carried out under the aegis of the national institutions of Afghanistan,’ he warned.

Iran, which sent Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Mehdi Akhoundzadeh to the talks, promised it would help fight drugs trafficking and in reconstruction projects.

‘The presence of foreign forces has not improved things in the country and it seems that an increase in the number of foreign forces will prove ineffective too,’ Akhoundzadeh said.

But he added: ‘Iran is fully prepared to participate
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