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March 4th, 2013 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
The Afghan Taliban are considering a political solution to the decade long conflict, a senior Taliban leader has said, amid speculation that the Taliban may be becoming war weary.
“We must launch a political movement to achieve the goals for
which we have made so many sacrifices. The Taliban leaders whose
names have been removed from the UN black list will play an
important role in the political process,” Mullah Agha Jan
Mutasim, a close confident of the militant groups elusive leader
Mullah Omar and the former head of the Taliban Political
Commission, told the Pakistani newspaper the Express
Tribune.
However, he added that the warring faction was a “vital part of
the Taliban”.
The Taliban have said numerous times that they will not talk to
the administration of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who they’ve
said was a US puppet. But political analysts believe that the
Taliban are tired of waging war.
“The Taliban are tired of war and it will be a step in the
right direction if they launch a political movement,” Rashid
Waziri, an advisor at the Regional Studies Center of Afghanistan,
told the Express Tribune on Sunday.
Pakistan, which has some influence over the Afghan Taliban,
recently sent Maulana Rehman, an influential political-religious
leader, to meet Taliban representatives in Qatar to help broker
peace talks between the militants and the Karzai administration,
although officially both sides denied the meeting.
The unofficial talks in Doha, mark the latest efforts at a
negotiated settlement with the Taliban.
As 2014 approaches – the date when most NATO troops will leave
Afghanistan – the US is pushing for an Afghan led solution and for
peace talks between the Afghan government and the
insurgency.
They also want to get Pakistan on board with any eventual
settlement. Pakistan has long been a negative influence on the
situation, enabling Taliban groups to operate from its territory
while at the same time refusing to support negotiations.
Tony Gosling, an investigative journalist based in Bristol in
the UK, believes the Taliban are serious about a political solution
and that they have more influence in the country than the Karzai
government.
“The Taliban have more influence than Karzai does. If
elections in Afghanistan were free and fair, the Taliban might well
do very well,” he told RT.
He also said that the west is trying to bring them into the
political arena, as it now has little other option.
“We know that this has been going on behind the scenes since
the beginning of the occupation. As the cost of the war gets higher
and higher and cuts to the defense budget begin to bite, other
options are being considered by the occupying powers,” said
Gosling.
American military commanders concluded some time ago that the
Afghan war could only end in a negotiated settlement with the
Taliban and not an outright military victory. However talks between
the Taliban and the US in 2012 ended in failure.
The talks stalled because the US administration could not
complete a proposed prisoner swap for five Taliban members in
Guantanamo to be exchanged for the one US soldier in captivity in
Afghanistan, Sergeant Bowe Bergdhal.
The swap, which was scuppered by opposition from both parties in
Congress, has made more serious talks difficult to envisage.
The Taliban are also internally divided particularly between
their political wing and their military commanders, who were
critical of the existence of talks.
They are also unwilling to meet Washington’s demands to sever
ties with Al Qaida, renounce violence and accept the commitments to
political and human rights in Afghanistan’s Constitution.
But despite all these setbacks the Qataris remain willing to
host the talks and one of the Taliban negotiators who is still in
Doha has said that talks could restart as soon as the prisoner swap
takes place and the insurgents are allowed to open an office in
Doha.
If this happens “and practical steps are taken by the United
States of America, talks will resume. There is no other
obstruction,” Sohail Shaheen, a Taliban negotiator, told
Japan’s NHK World TV last month.
Gosling believes that when NATO troops have gone and
negotiations are underway between the Taliban and the Afghan
government, there is a chance of peace in the country, although
there may be problems in the short term.
“What’s happening in Pakistan and Iraq with frequent
sectarian bombings, there is a likelihood of this happening in
Afghanistan. But ultimately, if Afghanistan were left alone, it may
turn into a more peaceful regime,” he said.
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Source Article from http://rt.com/news/taliban-war-negotiate-afghanistan-802/
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