Karzai holding secret talks with Taliban, spokesman says

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been holding secret talks with Taliban officials in the hope of persuading them to make peace with his government, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

"I can confirm that ... Taliban are willing more than ever to join the peace process," his spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters. "Contacts have been made, and we are also in touch with them."

A member of Afghanistan's High Peace Council also confirmed that talks had taken place but was measured in his assessment of their success. "Talks took place in Dubai three weeks ago between government officials and Taliban who flew from Doha, but we are still waiting to see the result," he said.

Western and Afghan officials speaking to the Times also said the talks had so far borne little fruit, although they may help explain Karzai's mounting public hostility to Washington.

The relationship has come under increasing pressure since November, when Karzai announced his intention to avoid signing a bilateral security deal with the United States until after a presidential election on April 5.

His decision to drop the deal, which took about a year to hammer out, shocked Western diplomats. The uncertainty about Afghanistan's fate after U.S. troops pull out has weighed on the Afghan economy. Faizi did not directly link Karzai's surprise move to the start of talks with the Taliban but said relations had improved since then.

Afghanistan’s relationship with the United States is on a downward spiral, and Karzai's refusal to sign the security deal is sapping already scant support for the war in Washington, which has halved aid for civilian assistance in the 2014 fiscal year.

President Barack Obama, frustrated by Karzai's refusal, is due to meet top commanders at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the future of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

Washington has signaled it could pull all troops out after 2014 unless a deal is signed soon. Doing so would leave Afghanistan's fledgling security forces to fight the Taliban insurgency alone, without U.S. financial or military support.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Monday that the pact needed to be signed within "weeks, not months."

"This can't wait for very long, because it's impossible to ask our NATO allies or our U.S. military commanders to plan on a contingency," he said. "This is a complicated piece of business, and there cannot be and will not be U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 without a signed bilateral security agreement." 

Despite participating in the secret talks, the Taliban have vowed to derail Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election and have stepped up attacks in Kabul to do so.

January's tally of attacks was the highest since 2008, according to security officials, and the trend has continued into February, with two bombs going off in Kabul on Monday.

Meanwhile, talks between Pakistani officials and the Taliban’s branch there were reportedly delayed after government negotiators failed to show up for the first round.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been pushing for negotiations over military operations to quell political violence in the country. Both sides recently named their negotiating teams, which had been expected to meet in Islamabad.

But Maulana Samiul Haq, a Pakistani cleric picked by the Taliban to represent them, says his team was left waiting in vain.

Rahimullah Yousufzai, a member of Pakistan's negotiating team, responded that they were waiting for confirmation from the Taliban about who their delegates would be. He said that once the government received the names, the talks would follow within a few days.

Wire services