Guardian:
Recent widely-reported contacts between senior Taliban and the Kabul government have little to do with a peace settlement and involve scarcely more than exchanges of cash and prisoners, diplomats and observers have told the Guardian.
They say contacts with the Taliban have been under way for several years and reflect how war is waged in Afghanistan, where talking and fighting at the same time are common. But the encounters have been hyped as signs of a move towards peace as part of a misinformation campaign aimed at the Taliban leadership, or to reinforce the impression that Nato and Afghan forces are making strategic gains.
Anticipation of a breakthrough rose earlier this month after Nato officers and Afghan officials briefed journalists that there had been high-level contacts between President Hamid Karzai and senior Taliban members.
Karzai claimed to "have had personal meetings with some Taliban leaders" and has set up a high peace council with the aim of pursuing a political settlement.
Nato officials spoke of meetings with four Taliban commanders, including a top member of the movement claiming to express its "collective will" with the approval of its leader, Mullah Omar.
The US and Nato commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, even said his forces had facilitated the talks by allowing Taliban officials to fly to the meetings in safety.
But according to officials briefed on the talks, there is, in the words of one source, "less than meets the eye".
The Taliban member who flew to Kabul to meet Karzai was influential, but not a member of the Quetta Shura leadership council, and probably did not represent its views. Karzai did not raise the prospect of power-sharing or division of territory, but rather sought to buy his Taliban interlocutors off one by one by offering cash.
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The Taliban took small amounts of money and offed even less in the way of peace. While these talks obviously have their Afghan political components, I think
the US is engaged as a way to buy off the anti war left in Obama's party. Keeping them quite while we continue to destroy the enemy is probably a good thing and gives us a better chance of victory. The Pakistan government is
also skeptical about the alleged progress in Afghanistan.
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