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| Afghanistan |
| Karzai to visit Qatar for talks on Taliban office |
| 2013-03-24 |
| As far as I can work our Karzi will do a runner before the elections next year, possibly claiming medical reasons. So what is he up to now? Afghan President Hamid Karzai is to visit Qatar to discuss the proposed opening of a Taliban office there as a prelude to possible peace talks, the foreign ministry said Sunday. Until earlier this year, Karzai rejected the idea of a Taliban office in Qatar because of fears that his government would be frozen out of any deal between the United States and the militants. The Taliban have refused to negotiate directly with Karzai, and the foreign ministry stressed that it would only start negotiations if the militants "break all relations with Al-Qaeda and give up terrorism". "President Hamid Karzai will visit Qatar within weeks," Janan Mosazai, foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters. "Talks with the emir of Qatar will include the peace process in Afghanistan and the opening of a Taliban office." The Islamist militants broke off tentative contacts with the US in Qatar in March last year after the failure of attempts to negotiate a prisoner exchange as a confidence-building measure. |
| Posted by:tipper |