PESHAWAR, Oct 28: Rejecting Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s offer for talks, Taliban on Saturday said it was meaningless to negotiate with a ‘puppet regime’ propped up by foreign forces.

According to a statement sent to various media outlets, including Dawn, Taliban spokesman Dr Mohammad Hanif said it was useless to talk with a regime that did not have any authority.

A statement earlier quoted Mr Karzai as saying: “We welcome everyone, even if it is Mullah Omar, if they want to talk and negotiate … but they should first free themselves from foreign slavery and come (back) to their own land and live in peace,” President Karzai was quoted as saying.

Alluding to President Karzai, the Taliban spokesman said no elaboration was needed to see who was a foreign puppet, who had been propelled into power by foreign occupation forces and who had been ruling the country under the shadow of F-16s and B-52s, fighter and bomber planes.

“The Taliban Islamic Movement is an independent Afghan movement behind which all Afghan mujahideen and independence-seeking Afghans have rallied. No foreign power and government is supporting us”, the one-page Pushto statement said.

Reiterating Taliban’s stand on the talks offer, the spokesman said it was impossible to negotiate when Afghanistan was under occupation.

Holding talks with occupiers, he said, amounted to surrendering the country.