Pakistani and Afghan leaders on Tuesday agreed to make contact with insurgent groups, including the Taliban, in a bid to end bloodshed and violence in their troubled border regions. Leaders from the neighboring states reached the decision here at the end of a two-day Pak-Afghan jirgagai, or mini-tribal council, which was attended by 50 officials and tribal elders from both sides.
The meeting was held as a follow-up to a grand tribal jirga held in Kabul in August 2007. "We agreed that contacts should be established with the opposition in both countries, joint contacts through the mini-tribal council," said Abdullah Abdullah, the leader of the Afghan delegation and the former Afghan foreign minister.
Abdullah said that the door for negotiations was now open for opposition forces in Afghanistan.
When asked to clarify whether the opposition included the Taliban and other militant groups, Owais Ghani, the leader of the Pakistani delegation and governor of the troubled North-West Frontier Province, said, "Yes, it includes all those who are involved in this conflict situation."
"We will sit, we will talk to them, they will listen to us and we will come to some sort of solution. Without dialogue we cannot have any sort of conclusion," Ghani said.