Afghan legislators hold tentative peace talks with insurgents

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Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Afghan legislators hold tentative peace talks with insurgents

By Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers – 53 mins ago

KABUL — Traveling at their own expense, Afghan parliamentarians held preliminary peace talks over the weekend with members of an insurgent faction that's trying to overthrow the government, participants said Thursday.

"Security is getting worse and worse. The government is getting worse and worse. Corruption is getting worse and worse," said Sayed Jamal Fakori Beheshti, a member of parliament from Bamiyan province, explaining the decision by 10 members of parliament to participate in the talks Saturday and Sunday in the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean .

However, it isn't clear how many insurgent groups feel some incentive to compromise with the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai , and how many think they can outlast the embattled Karzai and wait for U.S. troops to begin withdrawing next year, as President Barack Obama reiterated they will do in his State of the Union speech Wednesday night.

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The disclosure came as Britain held a 70-nation conference Thursday on Afghanistan at which major powers agreed to back Karzai's plan to woo low- and mid-level Taliban fighters and pursue "reconciliation" with high-level Taliban leaders who agree to abandon their insurgency.

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