Karzai to brief PM on secret Taliban talks

The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, will today brief Gordon Brown on talks being held with the Taliban with the aim of ending the conflict in his country, The Independent has learnt.

Mr Karzai is due to meet the Prime Minister after flying in from New York, where he discussed the matter with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the Pakistani President, Asif Ali Zardari.

The Saudi monarch has sponsored dialogue between the Afghan government and emissaries of the Taliban and other insurgent groups at a series of confidential meetings. Mr Zardari, who took over as Pakistan's civilian head of state after recent elections, is said to have been facilitating the talks.

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Mr Karzai is on a short visit to Britain for the Prince of Wales's 60th birthday party and will see Mr Brown before the Prime Minister goes to Washington DC for the G20 summit. Britain maintains a public posture of not talking to the Taliban, although secret talks have indeed been held, but supports the Afghan regime's efforts to direct peace overtures towards the Islamist group.

One of the meetings hosted by King Abdullah took place in Mecca in September and is said to have included Mr Karzai's brother Qayum, Mullah Mohammad Tayeb Agha, the former spokesman for the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, the former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, and the ex- Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif, who has contacts with the insurgents.

The Independent has also learnt that Mr Karzai's government held secret talks with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former mujahedin leader now labelled a terrorist by American and Britain, through members of his family who regularly visit Kabul.

As a mujahedin commander against the Russians, Mr Hekmatyar was supported by the CIA and Pakistan. In the civil war which followed the Soviet withdrawal, he continued to be backed by the Americans and Pakistanis despite being blamed for atrocities. The warlord later fell out with the Americans and based himself in Iran, from where he directed attacks on Nato in Afghanistan.

In another move towards negotiations with the Taliban, a two-day assembly of Afghan and Pakistani tribal elders was held in Pakistan and agreed to set up a committee to open a dialogue with the Taliban, according to the former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, who was one of the delegates.

Although the British Government denies involvement in any negotiations with the Taliban, direct contact with the insurgents has taken place, leading to a number of them changing sides and providing intelligence which led to their leaders being killed or captured.

Last month, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the departing commander of British troops in Afghanistan, said a purely military victory was not possible and there would have to be a negotiated end to the conflict. Mr Brown has had personal experience of reconciliation involving Islamists. During his visit to Saudi Arabia last week, he met and shook hands with former jihadists who had been held at Guantanamo Bay.

The US has also changed its position on talking to the Taliban. Soon after Mullah Omar's regime was overthrown in 2001, the then US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that it would never again be allowed to seize power in Afghanistan. "Those who have been defeated would like to come back but they will not have that opportunity" he said. Since then, with the Taliban resurgent as the US-led "war on terror" shifted to Iraq, American officials have been much more receptive to the idea of talking to the Taliban. David Petraeus, the US general credited with reducing violence in Iraq by winning over insurgents, is now overseeing the multi-national mission in Afghanistan. He is expected to introduce some of his Iraqi tactics into the conflict.

* An inquiry may be held into the continued use of lightly-armoured Snatch Land Rovers in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Defence Secretary, John Hutton, said he was prepared to look at a formal request for an investigation from the mother of Pte Phillip Hewett, who died when his Land Rover was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005.