Snubbed Karzai demands Taliban lays down arms before talks

Afghanistan’s president has disrupted plans for peace talks between America and the Taliban by threatening a boycott.

Hamid Karzai said he will not meet the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations and the militant group stops its violent attacks on the ground.

Mr Karzai is upset over the joint US and Taliban announcement that they would begin preliminary peace talks in Qatar without the Afghan government.

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Mr Karzai said that his High Peace Council would “neither attend nor participate in the talks” until the process is “completely” in the hands of Afghans.

He earlier announced he had suspended talks with the US on a new security deal in protest at how the talks were announced.

He also says peace talks cannot begin amid “fighting and bloodshed.”

In a terse statement Mr Karzai said: “In view of the contradiction between acts and the statements made by the United States of America in regard to the peace process, the Afghan government suspended the negotiations, currently underway in Kabul between Afghan and US delegations on the bilateral security agreement.”

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Although the Taliban have dismissed Mr Karzai as an American puppet for years, they indicated when opening a new political office in Doha, Qatar, that they would be willing to talk with him.

But both the Americans and the Taliban said they would first meet together before any talks with the Afghanistan government.

In another incident highlighting the fragile situation, only hours after announcing the talks, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base which killed four American troops. And five Afghan police officers were killed at a security outpost in Helmand province by apparent Taliban infiltrators – the latest in a string of so-called “insider attacks” that have shaken the confidence of the nascent Afghan security forces.

The opening of the Taliban office in Doha with the intention of starting peace talks was a reversal of months of failed efforts to start negotiations while militants intensified a campaign targeting urban centres and government installations across Afghanistan.

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President Barack Obama cautioned that the peace talks with the Taliban would be neither quick nor easy but that their opening a political office in Doha was an “important first step toward reconciliation” between the Islamic militants and the government of Afghanistan. US officials said bilateral meetings with Taliban representatives would be held in the coming days. Mr Karzai’s High Peace Council had been expected to follow up with its own Taliban talks but it was now not clear whether that would happen.