Reaching out to the Taliban

Monday, 27 July 2009 1:00 PM

By Alex Stevenson

Encouraging more moderate Taliban elements to lay down their arms forms the centrepiece of a new shift in strategy towards Afghanistan.

Foreign secretary David Miliband pressed home the importance of giving Afghans backing the Taliban an alternative in his speech on Nato's mission in Afghanistan in Brussels.

He said the Taliban consisted of different elements from foot soldiers, through poppy farmers and narco-traffickers, to power-hungry warlords.

Alongside the wider challenges of reassuring the Afghan population and fostering regional stability, Mr Miliband's third political challenge was the "reintegration and reconciliation" of these elements.

"The basis for both reintegration and reconciliation is a starker choice: bigger incentives to switch sides and stay out of trouble, alongside tougher action against those who refuse," he said.

"For higher-level commanders and their networks, we need to work with the Afghan government to separate the hard-line ideologues, who are essentially irreconcilable and violent and who must be pursued relentlessly, from those who can be drawn into domestic political processes."

Britain has already been engaged in covert attempts to reach out to moderate Taliban. Today's speech is significant because it signals London's willingness to make this part of the Afghanistan struggle more public.

Mr Miliband quoted comments made by Barack Obama in late March in his speech. The US president said Afghans needed to be presented with an "option to choose a different course".

Next month sees a vital presidential election which critics fear is already doomed to be undermined by insecurity across the country.

Debate in recent weeks on Britain's involvement in Afghanistan has taken on a longer-term perspective in recent weeks, however. A series of deaths among British forces, killed as part of Operation Panther's Claw, and outspoken comments about the limits of their equipment by outgoing Army chief General Sir Richard Dannatt have focused concerns.

Mr Miliband sought to press the non-military aspects of the Afghan struggle in his speech.

He concluded: "We will not force the Taliban to surrender just through force of arms and overwhelming might. Nor will we convert them to our point of view through force of argument and ideological conviction.

"But by challenging the insurgency, by dividing the different groups, by convincing the Afghans that we will not desert them to Taliban retribution, and by building legitimate governance especially at local level with the grain of Afghan society, the Afghan government, with our support, can prevail."

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