BERLIN, April 15: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday voiced understanding for talks with the Taliban as she mourned late diplomat Richard Holbrooke, an avid proponent of reconciliation in Afghanistan. At a memorial service, Mrs Clinton credited Mr Holbrooke – who died unexpectedly at the age of 69 in December – with setting the troubled US ties with Pakistan and Afghanistan on the right track as special envoy to the countries.

“Those who found negotiations with the Taliban distasteful got a very powerful response from Richard – diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends,” Mrs Clinton said at the American Academy in Berlin, which was co-founded by Mr Holbrooke, a former ambassador to Germany.

“And negotiating with your adversaries wasn’t a disservice to people who had died, if by talking you could prevent more violence,” she said.

The late envoy was seen as the main force in President Barack Obama’s administration seeking a political deal in Afghanistan, despite calls by conservatives and the military to try to crush the Taliban insurgency.

Mr Obama has tripled the number of troops in Afghanistan to around 100,000 but his administration has also increasingly signalled it does not believe there is a military solution to the conflict.

Mrs Clinton, while supporting the diplomatic push, made clear in talks on Thursday with Nato foreign ministers that the United States would stay committed militarily in Afghanistan well beyond a July drawdown date originally set by Mr Obama.

Turkey’s role: Far from the western capitals, a move to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table is gathering pace. Turkey is working to open a political office for the Taliban in Istanbul, a close aide to Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Friday.

“It’s being negotiated right now,” Ibrahim Kalin told the Hurriyet daily in the first explicit comments on the plan, adding the office would be located in Istanbul.

Turkey, which has hosted talks aimed at building trust between Pakistan and Afghanistan, has said before that it is open to the establishment of a diplomatic presence for the Taliban to help with talks to end the war in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani official, speaking during a visit by President Asif Ali Zardari to Ankara on Thursday, told Reuters Islamabad would back such a plan. Analysts say that any solution to the Afghan conflict would probably require the support of Pakistan.—Agencies