Afghan peace negotiators believe the Taliban are willing to significantly soften stance, with its leaders already laying the ground for possible peace. — Photo by AP

KABUL: Senior Afghan peace negotiators believe the Taliban are willing to significantly soften stance, with its leaders already laying the ground for possible peace talks in the Gulf state of Qatar.

Former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a member of the High Peace Council set up by President Hamid Karzai two years ago to liaise with militants, said that after a decade of fighting with Nato the Taliban were ready to make compromises on key issues.

And despite the assassination only last September of former president and leader of the peace process Burhanuddin Rabbani, secret discussions that began in Germany in November 2010 between US, Taliban, German and Qatari representatives had a good chance of success, Rahmani said.

“The Taliban are not back to govern the same way as the old Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. When they are back, they will be back as (other) Afghans,” Rahmani, a Taliban defector with strong ties to the movement, said at his sparsely furnished home in a part of western Kabul heavily damaged during the country’s bloody civil war.

“For Taliban members with the talent and skills, they will be election candidates for parliament, the presidency or the cabinet. The Taliban are not back to take over Afghanistan,” he said.

Martine van Bijlert, of respected independent think-tank Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul, said no one could assume that talks with the Taliban would not work.    “But at the same time, we can’t get ahead of ourselves,” she said.

“There seems to be a real chance at the moment. The high council has an interest in optimism of course, given their role in the process. But whether it can work is a fine balance.

There is not an option not to try.”

The Taliban announced this month that it would open a political office in Qatar to support possible peace talks with the United States and key allies, seen by backers like Rahmani as the best chance of reaching a ceasefire ahead of a withdrawal of foreign combat troops in 2014.

As a confidence-building measure, the Islamist group which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until the US-led invasion of the country in late 2001 called for the release of five members being held at Guantanamo Bay, a US military enclave in Cuba.

Rahmani said preparations in Qatar were under way, with a team of senior aides to Taliban leader Mullah Omar already in Doha.

“I think the (Qatar) office is operational, but media are strictly banned,” he said, looking frail with age and swathed in a heavy, fur-lined coat against the winter cold.

“People are already there like Shahabuddin Delawar (a former Taliban envoy to Saudi Arabia), Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai (a former Taliban deputy foreign minister) and Tayeb Agha (said to be a close aide and former secretary to Mullah Omar).”

Talks could begin in weeks and Rahmani said he expected that junior Taliban fighters would accept any peace agreed by their leaders if negotiations with US and Afghan government officials proved ultimately successful.

“Those who fight on the field take their instruction from the leaders. The soldiers will not fight, or have someone else organise them and supply them. To say otherwise just looks like propaganda to me,” he said.—Reuters