KABUL, Feb 17: Talks with Taliban insurgents must only take place through Afghan government channels, President Hamid Karzai’s office warned on Tuesday after reports surfaced of dialogue led by Danish soldiers.

Presidential spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told reporters he was unaware of a report in the Jyllands-Posten daily, which cited a Danish officer as saying that Taliban were represented at soldiers’ talks with local chiefs.

“We must intensify the dialogue and the negotiations with the Taliban if we want to have peace in Afghanistan, because we cannot eliminate the enemy,” the lieutenant colonel was quoted as saying on Monday after a six-month mission.

Asked about the report, Mr Hamidzada said he had not seen it.

“But the policy of the Afghanistan government is: any talks or dialogue should take place through government, not by the friendly countries having a presence in Afghanistan,” he said.

The aide recalled the “bitter experiences” of December 2007 when the Afghan government expelled an Irish and a British diplomat for contacts with the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, an insurgent stronghold.

Mr Karzai has for years called on Taliban insurgents who are not allied with Al Qaeda to lay down arms in exchange for amnesty.

Denmark has about 700 soldiers in the 55,000-strong Nato-led International Security Assistance Force, which works alongside a separate US-led coalition and the Afghan forces to fight a Taliban-led insurgency.

In the seven years since the Taliban regime was ousted in a US-led invasion, the insurgency has only worsened leading to mounting calls for a non-military solution.—AFP