Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid today rejected President Hamid Karzai’s decision to select Burhanuddin Rabbani as the head of the “peace council,” saying Rabbani’s history made him an obstacle to peace.
“We fought Rabbani and his warlords as enemies for a long time so how can we sit with him and discuss peace,” declared Mujahid. Rabbani claimed to have contacts with militants willing to make peace deals.
The reports of Afghanistan’s “talks” with the Taliban seem to be trending back to the old story where officials confirm the talks only for the Taliban to note that they aren’t actually taking place, and Mujahid reiterated the long-standing Taliban position that they will not accept any talks without a NATO withdrawal.
Likewise US officials have downplayed the talks, insisting that they would only accept the deal if it meant a virtual surrender for the Taliban, including full disarmament and swearing to accept the US-written constitution. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that nine years into the war neither side has budged an inch and the war just gets more and more violent all the time.
The Taliban rejection of Rabbani as Karzai's peace emisary is understandable. During the Soviet/Afghan War, Rabbani and his military stooge, Ahmad Shah Massoud, were on the Soviet's payroll and lengthened the war by protecting their lines of supply along the precipitous Salang Highway. The supply life-line to Kabul.
Once a collaborator, always a collaborator. "A Leopard cannot change his spots." Any representative from this faction will be uncerimoniously rejected by Taliban.
The rejection for the peace deal by the Taliban is no surprise. They know the Karazai thugs are puppets for the occupying force; therefore, they have no say whether they accept the deal or not because it doesn’t change their goal of cleaning their country from the occupiers and the traitors. Knowing through history it’s a not a win situation for US & their European puppet forces.