NATO chief favours negotiations with Taliban

September 11th, 2009 KABUL - The commission appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to investigate last week's NATO airstrike on two fuel tankers that claimed dozens of Taliban and civilian lives has exonerated the German Army, which ordered the strike, a German television station reported Friday. Civilians were indeed among the victims, but responsibility for the incident lies with the Taliban, ARD television reported, citing investigators in the commission.

August 22nd, 2009 LAHORE - Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) Secretary General Mushahid Hussain has said steps are being taken to initiate talks with the Taliban chief Mullah Omar. In an interview to a private television channel, Husain said he had talks with an Afghan 'intellectual' last week, who told him that he wanted to convene a grand Afghan 'jirga' (meeting) to start negotiations with all factions of the Taliban.

August 21st, 2009 LONDON - A former British special forces commander has been appointed to mastermind a program of reconciliation with members of the Taliban, General David Petraeus, the US military chief, said overnight. Lieutenant-General Sir Graeme Lamb, who retired recently from the British Army, was personally requested by General Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to take on the role, which is considered crucial to reduce the impact of the insurgency.

August 18th, 2009 KABUL - Most of the candidates contesting the August 20 presidential elections in Afghanistan vow to negotiate peace with the Taliban, but appear clueless about how to move effectively in that direction. Although incumbent president Hamid Karzai has often talked about negotiating with the Taliban, little of note has happened and the government's reconciliation program for Taliban fighters is barely functioning.

August 18th, 2009 LAHORE - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is not interested in dragging former President General Pervez Musharraf to the court of law, but rather favours reconciliation with the former general. Zardari said the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) favours reconciliation with Musharraf, and that the fate of the ex-Army chief would be decided by the parliament.

August 15th, 2009 KABUL - At least three people were killed and 70 wounded in a suicide car bomb blast outside the NATO headquarters here on Saturday. The blast comes just five days before presidential elections and against a backdrop of increased violence by the Taliban.

August 3rd, 2009 PARIS - French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner has called for dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan in an interview published Monday. "Of course, one has to negotiate with the Taliban, at least those who are prepared to lay down their weapons and talk," Kouchner told Le Figaro newspaper.

July 27th, 2009 BRUSSELS - British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has urged NATO members to change strategies on Afghanistan in a bid to facilitate talks with moderate elements of the Taliban. In a speech delivered at the NATO headquarters, Miliband said that while it was vital to keep pressing forward with the military campaign against the insurgents, it would also be prudent to start a Northern Ireland-style dialogue with the enemy.

July 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - People in more than a dozen countries have a misperception of how Afghans feel about the presence of NATO in their country, a poll released Thursday shows. The poll taken in 20 nations found that most of those surveyed believe the Afghans want NATO forces to leave, although the Afghans appear to disagree.

June 24th, 2009 KABUL - Thirty Taliban militants were killed in clashes with NAvTO and Afghan forces in separate incidents in southern Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday. A statement from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said 25 Taliban fighters were killed in the southern Kandahar province Tuesday night in a raid on rebel hideouts.

June 12th, 2009 BRUSSELS - NATO members states must give the Afghan police more training and better equipment to help them fight off insurgent attacks, the alliance's top official said Friday. Two-thirds of all the uniformed personnel killed in Afghanistan are police officers, and there is an "urgent need to provide them with better training, infrastructure and equipment", NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told alliance defence ministers.

May 13th, 2009 PESHAWAR - Armed militants on Wednesday launched a rocket attack on a NATO supply terminal located on Peshawar's Ring Road, Geo news reports. According to the sources, a fire broke out following the attack by unidentified militants.

May 11th, 2009 THATTA - Pakistan's Commerce Minister Amin Fahim has said there is no truth to rumours that the Pakistan People's Party (PPP)-led government will not complete its tenure because the US favours PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif. Speaking to reporters at the Dastarbandi ceremony of Sardar Ameer Otho, who was declared the chieftain of Otho tribe after the death of his father, he said the PPP always trusted people who voted it into power.

April 21st, 2009 Afghan gov't: No breakthroughs in Taliban talksKABUL — The Afghan government has held "good discussions" with Taliban militants as it seeks a way to end an increasingly the bloody insurgency against Afghan, U.S. and NATO forces, the president's spokesman said Tuesday.

April 4th, 2009 Baden-BADEN - NATO leaders failed to agree on the appointment of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's next secretary general during dinner talks in the German city of Baden-Baden, officials said Friday. Rasmussen, 56, had been tipped as the frontrunner to replace the current NATO chief, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, when the Dutchman steps down at the end of July.