Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai Friday used his traditional message marking the Eidul Fitr holiday to call on the leader of the Taliban to join his peace plans and speed an end to Afghanistan's long war.
Karzai's message appeared to escalate his efforts to draw the Taliban to peace talks, after he recently set up a High Peace Council to open dialogue with the Taliban, who have been waging an insurgency for almost nine years.
He called on the one-eyed leader of the movement, believed to be in hiding in Pakistain, and his fighters to lay down their arms.
"We hope Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund joins the peace processor, gives up fratricide, gives up bombings and blasts, stops causing casualties to Afghanistan's children, women and men," he said, using Omar's religious title.
He said he would announce the council's membership line-up after the three-day Eid holiday.
The formation of the High Peace Council was "a significant step towards peace talks," Karzai's office said at the time.
The move is the biggest step Karzai has yet taken in his efforts to open a dialogue with the Taliban leadership aimed at ending the war approaching its tenth year.
Karzai's plan to create the HPC was approved in June at a "peace jirga" in Kabul attended by community, tribal, religious and political leaders from across the country.
The council was mooted as a negotiating body, to be made up of around 50 representatives of a broad section of Afghan society, to talk peace with the Taliban.
Officials have said it would include former members of the Taliban and Hizb-i-Islami, a minor but vicious thug group led by former prime minister and mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
... who used to be known as
The Most Evil Man in the Worldbut who now seems merely run-of-the-mill evil...
| They keep raising the standards, you see, and poor Mr. Hekmatyar couldn't keep up. |
The Taliban have repeatedly spurned peace overtures, deriding Karzai's government as a puppet of the United States and saying they will not talk peace until all foreign forces have left the country.