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January 29, 2010

U.S. Cool to Karzai Overture to Taliban Leaders
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has announced a peace overture aimed at
top Taliban leaders. On Thursday, Karzai told an international
conference in London he hopes to negotiate a peace deal with the Taliban
that would end the more than eight years of fighting since the U.S.
invasion. The Obama administration has so far refused to endorse the
proposal. Addressing the same conference, Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton said the U.S. would only back an agreement with low-level
Taliban fighters, not leadership.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “We have a very clear understanding
of what we expect from this process. We expect that a lot of the foot
soldiers on the battle field will be leaving the Taliban because a many
of them have wanted to leave, many of them are tired of fighting. We
believe the tide is beginning to turn against them and we need
incentives in order to both protect them and provide alternatives to
them to replace the payment they received as Taliban fighters.”



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