LONDON, Oct 15, (Agencies): The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, US General David Petraeus, admitted Friday that western troops have facilitated the safe passage of Taleban leaders to Kabul for talks with the government.
US and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops had helped insurgent commanders get to the Afghan capital as part of its support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s negotiations with the rebels, he said.
“There are certain ongoing initiatives in that regard,” Petraeus told an audience at the Royal United Services Institute in central London when asked about the state of negotiations with the hardline Islamist movement.
“And indeed in certain respects we do facilitate that, given that, needless to say, it would not be the easiest of tasks for a senior Taleban commander to enter Afghanistan and make his way to Kabul if ISAF were not witting and therefore aware of it and allows it to take place,” Petraeus said.
Karzai this month launched the High Council for Peace, the latest effort to persuade the Taleban and other insurgents to negotiate an end to the war which has entered its 10th year.
The Taleban on Wednesday denied a claim by Karzai that they were taking part in the talks, more than nine years after they were driven from power by a US-led invasion after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

But Petraeus, who also led the US “surge” in Iraq in 2007, said a number of key figures from the Taleban had also made contact with foreign forces in Afghanistan as well as with local authorities.
“There have been several very senior Taleban leaders who have reached out to the Afghan government at the highest level and also in some cases reached out to other countries engaged in Afghanistan,” he said.
He did not specify which countries.
Petraeus warned however the talks were still at an early stage, saying they “can only be characterised as preliminary in nature, they certainly would not be raised to the level of negotiations.”
A senior Nato official confirmed on Wednesday on condition of anonymity that the coalition force sometimes allows safe passage for Taleban figures travelling to the capital for talks with the Afghan government.

Pakistan said on Friday it was willing to assist talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, and Nato confirmed its forces had helped ensure a senior Taliban commander reached Kabul.
Nato and US officials have said they are ready to do more to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s reconciliation efforts with the Taliban, but Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said the talks must be led by Afghanistan itself.
“We are there to facilitate. Because we want to see a stable, peaceful Afghanistan. It’s in Pakistan’s interest to have stability and peace in Afghanistan,” Qureshi said in Brussels before talks on Pakistan’s economic development.
A senior Pakistani official familiar with the contacts between the Afghan government and the Taleban said they had been made possible by the lifting of US opposition.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said this week Washington would do whatever it takes to put peace talks on track.
“I don’t know whether these contacts will succeed or not but the process has been set into motion,” the Pakistani official said. “It’s just the beginning and this in itself is a success because earlier there has been (US) opposition.”

Aid workers in Afghanistan should work with the Taleban as the insurgents will play a permanent role in the country’s future, a safety monitoring group said Friday.
The insurgents, who have been fighting a brutal war for nine years, were becoming increasingly confident of returning to power, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said in a quarterly report.
With the Taleban “certain to play a permanent and increasingly political role” in Afghanistan’s future — and foreign forces increasingly sidelined — ANSO advised non-government organisations (NGOs) to work with the insurgents.
“We recommend that NGOs start developing strategies for engaging with them rather than avoiding them,” ANSO’s director Nic Lee said.
“We understand that the (insurgents) are increasingly desirous of this engagement and if handled correctly will respond to it coherently and non-violently,” he wrote in an introduction to the report.
ANSO is a non-profit group providing information to NGOs on the safety of areas where they operate throughout Afghanistan.