Washington: US officials this summer met with leaders of the Haqqani network, a strong faction of the Afghan Taliban, in a bid to draw them into talks on winding down the war, Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The group remains at the center of the deteriorating US relationship with Pakistan and the Americans have long said they were beyond reconciliation.
The US says Haqqani fighters were responsible for a 20-hour assault last month on the U.S. Embassy and the nearby North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Kabul.
But , according to the WSJ, the behind-the-scenes American effort reflects the growing realization that a military campaign alone won’t bring the Haqqanis to heel—and that compromises are needed to wind down U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.
The newspaper quoted a US official as saying “We’ve got no illusion about what the Haqqanis ultimately are,” But the “war is going to end with a deal. That’s what we’re trying to make inevitable. The more parties involved in talking, that’s probably going to make for a better deal.” The officials added.
The paper said there had been at least one meeting over the summer between US officials and Haqqani representatives. The meeting was set up by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, a fact that the Americans said confirmed thier suspicions of Pakistani ties to the Haqqanis.
The meeting took place as the Haqqanis were stepping up attacks in and around Kabul, but before their most high-profile strike to date, the assault on the US Embassy, which began on Sept. 13. The assault made the effort to talk to the Haqqanis more difficult, but the effort to get a peace process going hasn’t been abandoned.
A Pakistani official said Islamabad began facilitating contacts with the Haqqanis late last year and set up the meeting this summer in a Persian Gulf country. The Afghan government didn’t take part.
The US wouldn’t identify the participants; the Pakistani official said the insurgents were represented by one of the brothers of the main leader of the network, Sirajuddin Haqqani.
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