WASHINGTON, Nov 21: The US State Department on Monday rejected media reports that Washington is holding indirect talks with Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders as “total fabrication.” The department also rejected another report that an NWFP politician, Ibrahim Piracha, met US Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes during her recent visit to the quake-hit areas of Pakistan.

The report said that Ms Hughes had asked Mr Piracha to mediate between the US and the Taliban and Al Qaeda movements.

Ms Hughes, who is responsible for promoting a better image of her country in the Muslim world, “never met Mr Piracha,” a State Department official said. “This report too is a fabrication of somebody’s fertile imagination. She never met this politician, so she could not have asked him to do anything for the US”, the official said.

When contacted by Dawn, some members of the ruling Republican Party also said that they could not imagine Ms Hughes meeting “an obscure politician,” as one of them put it, to discuss “something as sensitive as opening links to Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.”

The official added: “Remember, she is a close personal friend of President Bush. If she wants, she will have better channels available.”

Media reports, however, insist the Bush administration is looking at various options for reaching out to the Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders because the two militant movements show little sign of abating even after four years of unrelenting US pressure.