U.N. Seeks to Drop Some Taliban From Terror List

The United Nations’ Kai Eide said he hoped that moves would help lead to talks between Afghan officials and Taliban leaders.

U.N. Seeks to Drop Some Taliban From Terror List
NY Times
The leader of the United Nations mission here called on Afghan officials to seek the removal of at least some senior Taliban leaders from the United Nations’ list of terrorists, as a first step toward opening direct negotiations with the insurgent group.

In an interview, Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative, also implored the American military to speed its review of the roughly 750 detainees in its military prisons here — another principal grievance of Taliban leaders. Until recently, the Americans were holding those prisoners at a makeshift detention center at Bagram Air Base and refusing to release their names.

Together, Mr. Eide said he hoped that the two steps would eventually open the way to face-to-face talks between Afghan officials and Taliban leaders, many of whom are hiding in Pakistan. The two sides have been at an impasse for years over almost every fundamental issue, including the issue of talking itself.

“If you want relevant results, then you have to talk to the relevant person in authority,” Mr. Eide said. “I think the time has come to do it.”

Last week, the American envoy to the region signaled some willingness to allow the names of some Taliban to be taken off the list as long as they are not senior commanders responsible for atrocities or associated with Al Qaeda.

“A lot of the names don’t mean much to me,” Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said last week in Kabul. “Some of the people on the list are dead, some shouldn’t be on the list and some are among the most dangerous people in the world.

“I would be all in favor of looking at the list on a case-by-case basis to see if there are people on the list who are on the list by mistake and should be removed, or in fact are dead,” he said.

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Afghan president Hamid Karzai urges West to buy off the Taliban
Times online co.uk
The government will provide the Taliban and other insurgent groups who wish to respect the constitution a dignified way to renounce violence and peacefully reintegrate into their communities,” says a draft version of the plan.
The international community has insisted that key Taliban leaders such as Mullah Mohammed Omar would not be part of any such plan. “The red line is links to Al-Qaeda,” Miliband said. But the document offers “key leaders of the Taliban movement” an opportunity for amnesty and reintegration.
Aside from differences between nations over who to negotiate with, there is scant evidence that the Taliban wish to come in from the cold.
US officials admit that it was a bad tactical error for President Obama to cite a target date of July 2011 to start withdrawing troops in his speech announcing the surge.
The date, which was inserted by the White House at the last minute to assuage disgruntled Democrats, has led the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan to believe they just have to wait.

“The Taliban are telling the local population the Americans will be gone in 18 months and we’ll be in charge so you better not cross us or we’ll kill you,” said an adviser to General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan

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Wild Thing’s commnet……..
Why on earth drop any of the Taliban from a terror list. good grief!
“Afghan president Hamid Karzai urges West to buy off the Taliban”
Yeah, buy ‘em off with bullets. It’s blackmail and extortion all rolled into one. I can’t imagine a way it can turn out good for those who decide to pay them off, even once. You can’t buy off terrorists.
We all saw this coming when they started practicing “catch and release” with the local Taliban in Afghanistan. Troops were complaining that they would turn the Taliban prisoners over to Afghans, only to find them back on the battlefield again shortly.