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Sat, Dec 25, 2010 | The Daily Telegraph | CNN | By Rob Crilly

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, at a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Robert Nickelsberg / Getty Images)

Taliban Wants to Open Formal Office in Turkey

Taliban leaders want to open a base in a neutral, third country such as an Arab Gulf state, Turkey or Japan before they embark on meaningful peace talks, according to senior figures in the movement.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, said meaningful talks were not possible until insurgent leaders had a safe base from which to negotiate and would help the Taliban make the transition from fighters to politicians.

“Taliban are condemned by the world. They have no address,” he said in the sitting room of the Kabul safe house where he now lives.

“If I was a Taliban I would choose a country close to Afghanistan but neutral, like the United Arab Emirates, somewhere which is not interested in interfering in Afghanistan, like Pakistan or China.”

Mullah Zaeef, once the international face of the Taliban, was arrested after 9/11 and spent almost four years in Guantanamo Bay. Although he claims no longer to speak for the Taliban, his eventual release and privileged position in Kabul have led analysts to conclude he retains close contacts with his former comrades and that he would act as an intermediary in any peace talks.

Ahmed Rashid, a noted Taliban expert, said he had recently conducted interviews with five former insurgent leaders, who each said the Taliban wanted to open an office in a neutral country – such as one of the Gulf states, Germany, Turkey or Japan – now that their strongholds of Kandahar and Helmand were being hit by teams of special forces. [Read full report here]

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef also writes books on the Afghanistan conflict. Published in five languages, Zaeef’s latest book, My Life with the Taliban, has received noteworthy mention in the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. And his message to the U.S. and his erstwhile Taliban comrades is that the conflict in Afghanistan will have to be settled through negotiation. “I believe that is the only solution,” Zaeef tells TIME. “You are fighting an ideology. You kill one man, and his two brothers will join the Taliban.” [Read more here]

Karzai open to Taliban setting up office in Turkey

Hamid Karzai (left) made the statement during a press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul (right).

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai said Friday that he’d welcome a Taliban office opening in Turkey, that country’s state-run news agency reported, adding that such a development could help peace talks in his war-torn nation, CNN reported on Saturday.

Karzai made his remarks during a joint press conference with Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, following a meeting of the three leaders at Istanbul’s Ciragan Palace.

The Afghan president acknowledged that there have been discussions about Taliban officials setting up somewhere in Turkey “in order to facilitate reconciliation and integration,” according to the Turkish news agency Anadolu.

“If Turkey can be kind to provide such a venue we, the government of Afghanistan will be pleased and happy to see that facilitation (in) Turkey,” said Karzai.

Read full report here.