November 26, 2008	Wednesday	Ziqa'ad 27, 1429

KABUL, Nov 25: President Hamid Karzai demanded at a meeting with a UN Security Council team on Tuesday that the international community set a ‘timeline’ for ending military intervention in Afghanistan, his office said.

Karzai told a delegation from the Council that his country needed to know how long the US-led ‘war on terror’ was going to be fought in Afghanistan or it would have to seek a political solution to a Taliban-led insurgency.

A US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 and launched its ‘war on terror’, which has brought nearly 70,000 mainly Western troops to Afghanistan, most of them under a UN Security Council mandate.

“The international community should give us a timeline of how long or how far the ‘war on terrorism’ will go,” Karzai’s chief spokesman Homayun Hamidzada cited the president as telling the delegation.

“If we don’t have a clear idea of how long it will be, the Afghan government has no choice but to seek political solutions,” he told AFP, adding this included “starting to talk to Taliban and those opposing the government”.

The delegation — which includes the US ambassador to the United Nations, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad — is on a fact-finding mission with security in the country at its weakest since the ouster of the Taliban.

Karzai, due to stand for re-election next year, has been pushing for talks with insurgents who renounce links with Al Qaeda and accept the post-Taliban constitution.

A statement released after the meeting said he had told the 15 UN ambassadors and representatives that Afghans were “not hopeful for the future” because of the poor security situation.

“The president emphasised that Afghanistan is committed to the war against Al Qaeda and those Taliban who take orders from outside,” it said.

“But we will talk with those Taliban who for various reasons have joined the opposition and are not against the Afghan constitution,” the statement said.

Karzai also said it was unacceptable that the Taliban controlled a number of districts in Afghanistan, including some in provinces with large numbers of international soldiers.

“We need to ensure the Afghan government is in control of its entire territory,” Hamidzada said. “Having pockets of territory mainly in southern Afghanistan and Helmand under Taliban control is unacceptable.”

Helmand, where British forces are in charge, is a stronghold of the Taliban. Insurgents are also said to hold areas in other provinces like Ghazni, Nuristan and Wardak.Karzai also repeated his demands that the international forces stop causing civilian casualties in their operations against insurgents and focus their efforts on militant bases in Pakistan, his spokesman said.

“He emphasised that the ‘war on terror’ cannot be fought in Afghan villages. It must be taken to (militant) sanctuaries and safe havens. That is why we are having civilian casualties — because we are ignoring the source of the problem,” Hamidzada said.—AFP