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KABUL: An overwhelming majority of Afghans support the government's efforts to negotiate peace with Taliban insurgents, according to a poll released Tuesday that ranks insecurity as the top concern among citizens, followed by unemployment and corruption.
Some 83 per cent of Afghan adults back efforts to secure the country through negotiations with armed, anti-government groups, the survey conducted by the Asia Foundation said. That's up from 71 per cent last year.
The report also said that 55 per cent of Afghan adults had no sympathy at all for the armed opposition groups — up from 36 per cent last year — and another 26 per cent had only a little sympathy.
Moreover, 81 per cent — 10 per cent more than last year — support programs to lure Taliban foot soldiers off the battlefield by providing assistance, jobs and housing to those who lay down their arms and reintegrate into society.
President Hamid Karzai has made reconciliation a top priority and recently formed a 70-member High Peace Council to find a political solution to the war, now in its 10th year. Officials in both the government and the Nato military coalition in Afghanistan have confirmed that contacts are being made with top insurgent leaders, but say no formal peace talks are yet under way.
The Taliban has denied that any of their top leaders are talking with the government. However, reconciliation is gaining support across the war-weary nation, according to the poll. Nearly three quarters of all respondents think government reconciliation efforts will succeed in helping stabilise the country.
Support for a peace process is highest in areas where fighting is the most intense with 89 per cent of Afghans in the east, and 85 per cent in the southeast and northwest backing reconciliation talks, the survey said.
But 20 per cent of women say they oppose the negotiations compared to only 12 per cent of men, possibly reflecting their fear that a future government that included Taliban would seek to curtail women's freedoms.
The 15 per cent of Afghans who felt things were moving in the right direction said they felt so primarily because schools for girls had opened.
More than 6,400 adults were polled in June and July in all 34 provinces, excluding some dangerous areas. The survey, conducted with financial backing from the US Agency for International Development, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
The San Francisco-based Asia Foundation is a non-profit organisation working for a peaceful and prosperous Asia-Pacific region.
According to the survey, 37 per cent believe insecurity is the nation's biggest problem, while 28 per cent cited unemployment as the worst problem and 27 per cent noted corruption, the poll said.
''Since 2006, insecurity and unemployment have consistently been identified as the biggest problems for the country as a whole,'' according to the more than 200-page report on the survey.
The Afghan army enjoyed the highest level of public confidence, with approval ratings of 91 per cent, followed by the Afghan police, who people said were beginning to operate more independently from international forces.
Government ministers and international aid groups only enjoyed 54 per cent approval, and local militias ranked the lowest, with only a third of Afghans expressing confidence in them. Of the Afghans who had experienced violence or crime in the past year, only six per cent said it was at the hands of international forces.
Rising numbers of Afghans are complaining about graft and bribery. Last year, 17 per cent said corruption was the worst problem facing the nation. This year, that figure jumped to 27 per cent.
''Respondents were asked whether they think corruption is a major problem, a minor problem or no problem at all in their daily life, their neighbourhood, their local authorities, their provincial government and in Afghanistan as a whole,'' the report said.
''The survey shows that the majority of Afghans think that corruption is a major problem in all facets of life and at all levels of government.''
