Afghanistan sets ground rules for Taliban talks

 Afghanistan will accept a Taliban office in Qatar to help peace talks but no foreign power can get involved in the process without its consent, the government's peace council said, as efforts gather pace to find a solution to the 10-year war.

Afghanistan's High Peace Council, in a note to foreign missions, has set out ground rules for engaging the Taliban after Kabul grew concerned that the United States and Qatar, helped by Germany, had secretly agreed with the Taliban to open an office in the Qatari capital, Doha.

It said that negotiations with the Taliban could only begin after they stopped violence against civilians, cut ties to al-Qaida, and accepted the Afghan constitution which guarantees civil rights and liberties, including rights for women.

The council, according to a copy of the 11-point note made available to Reuters, also said any peace process with the Taliban would have to have the support of Pakistan since members of the insurgent group were based there.

"The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is in agreement regarding the opening of an office for the armed opposition, but only to move forward the peace process and conduct negotiations," the council said.

The government would prefer such an office in either Saudi Arabia or Turkey, both of which it is close to, but was not averse to Doha as long as the authority of the Afghan state was not eroded and the office was only established for talks, officials said.

"We are saying Saudi or Turkey are preferable, we are not saying it has to be there only. The only condition is it should be in an Islamic country," said a government official.

President Hamid Karzai's administration recalled its ambassador from Doha last week, apparently angry that it had been kept in the dark about the latest round of negotiations with the insurgent group.

Officials said Kabul was also deeply concerned about reports that the United States was considering the transfer of a small number of Afghan prisoners from Guantanamo Bay military prison to Doha as a prelude to the talks.

"We are a sovereign country, we have laws. How can you transfer our prisoners from one country to another. Already it's a violation to have them in Guantanamo Bay," the official said.

The Afghan government wanted the prisoners to be returned to its custody, the official said.

Reuters reported this month that the United States was considering the transfer of an unspecified number of Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay into Afghan government custody as part of accelerating, high-stakes diplomacy.

"We have no problem with this. In fact we have been demanding this for a while. These are Afghan prisoners," said the official, who declined to be identified.

The tension between the Karzai administration and the United States over engaging the Taliban underscores the challenges of seeking a political settlement as the West prepares to withdraw most combat troops from the country by 2014.

Efforts to engage the insurgent group have faced a string of setbacks, the most recent being the assassination of the head of the peace council and former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September at the hands of a suicide bomber who pretended to be a Taliban emissary.

It led to a hardening of positions with Karzai saying the government could not talk to suicide bombers and that there should be an address for the Taliban so that negotiators know they are talking to the right representatives.

"We are committed to the reconciliation process, the experience of the last 10 years shows no military solution is possible. Talking to the armed opposition is the key in this regard," said presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.

The peace council, laying down the markers for engagement with the Taliban, said well known figures from both the Taliban and the government had to be involved in talks.

It said that "before any negotiations can take place, violence against Afghan people must stop and that the armed opposition must cut ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups".

It also said that the Taliban must accept the constitution and honour the gains made in the last 10 years since they were ousted from power, conditions that the Taliban have shown no sign of accepting.

The Taliban do not accept the constitution and have vowed to carry on fighting until all foreign troops have left the country.

The peace council said Pakistani support was necessary for talks to take place, another condition that makes the task harder because of fraught ties between the United States and Pakistan which fears it is being shut out of the process.

Opening a Taliban office in a third country itself is seen as a way to create distance from Pakistan which has longstanding ties to the insurgent group.

But the government official said he did not think the peace council had laid down such tough conditions that the talks would fail even before they started.

"We don't think it's a deal breaker. We are quite optimistic," he said.

Deal reached at UN climate talks

A UN climate conference reached a hard-fought agreement Sunday on a complex and far-reaching program meant to set a new course for the global fight against climate change for the coming decades.

The 194-party conference agreed to start negotiations on a new accord that would put all countries under the same legal regime enforcing commitments to control greenhouse gases. It would take effect by 2020 at the latest.

The deal also set up the bodies that will collect, govern and distribute tens of billions of dollars a year for poor countries. Other documents in the package lay out rules for monitoring and verifying emissions reductions, protecting forests, transferring clean technologies to developing countries and scores of technical issues.

Currently, only industrial countries have legally binding emissions targets under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Those commitments expire next year, but they will be extended for another five years under the accord adopted Sunday.

The proposed Durban Platform offered answers to problems that have bedeviled global warming negotiations for years about sharing the responsibility for controlling carbon emissions and helping the world's poorest and most climate-vulnerable nations cope with changing forces of nature.

Environment Minister Peter Kent said he was cautiously optimistic a new agreement could be reached by 2015.

"The Durban Platform sets out a process to negotiate a new climate change treaty that would create binding commitments for all major emitters," he said Sunday.

Canada has pushed to include countries like Brazil, South Africa, India and China, whose emissions are rising along with their growing economies, in any new deal.

Kent also reiterated that the federal government would not undertake a second Kyoto commitment.

He also said Canada would not contribute "scarce dollars" to a Green Climate Fund until all major emitters accept binding reduction targets.

The United States, meanwhile, was a reluctant supporter, concerned about agreeing to join an international climate system that likely would find much opposition in the U.S. Congress.

"This is a very significant package. None of us likes everything in it. Believe me, there is plenty the United States is not thrilled about," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said. But the package captured important advances that would be undone if it is rejected, he told the delegates.

A statement from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon's office called Sunday's decision "essential for stimulating greater action" to tackle the challenges of climate change.

The release said Ban was "gratified" with several of the agreements in the deal, including a second commitment to extend the Kyoto Protocol and the establishment of a Green Climate Fund.

"Taken together, these agreements represent an important advance in our work on climate change," the statement said, adding that the secretary-general urges that all nations involved in the deal implement the changes quickly.

Sunday's breakthrough capped 13 days of hectic negotiations that ran a day and a half over schedule, including two round-the-clock days that left negotiators bleary-eyed and stumbling with words. Delegates were seen nodding off in the final plenary session, despite the high drama, barely constrained emotions and uncertainty whether the talks would end in triumph or total collapse.

The nearly fatal issue involved the legal nature of the accord that will govern carbon emissions by the turn of the next decade.

A plan put forward by the European Union sought strong language that would bind all countries equally to carry out their emissions commitments

India led the objectors, saying it wanted a less rigorous option. Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan argued that the EU proposal undermined the 20-year-old principle that developing countries have less responsibility than industrial nations that caused the global warming problem through 200 years of pollution.

"The equity of burden-sharing cannot be shifted," she said in angry tones.

Chinese negotiator Xie Zhenhua gave heated support for the Indians, saying the industrial nations have not lived up to their promises while China and other developing countries had launched ambitious green programs.

"We are doing whatever we should do. We are doing things you re not doing. What qualifies you to say things like this," he said, raising his voice and waving his arm.

The debate ran past midnight and grew increasingly tense as speakers lined up almost evenly on one side or the other.

Conference president Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who is South Africa's foreign minister, called a recess and told the EU and Indian delegates to put their heads together and come up with a compromise formula.

Coming after weeks of unsuccessful effort to resolve the issue, Nkoana-Mashabane gave Natarajan and European Commissioner Connie Hedegaard 10 minutes to find a solution, with hundreds of delegates milling around them. They needed 50 minutes.

Pakistan, Taliban peace talks 'progressing well'

The deputy chief of the Pakistani Taliban announced Saturday that the militant group was in peace talks with the government and an agreement to end its brutal four-year insurgency was within striking distance.

The statement by Malvi Faqir Mohammad, which appeared timed to exploit tensions between the Pakistan army and the U.S., will likely stoke further concerns in Washington over Pakistan's reliability as a long-term partner in the fight against extremists.

It represented the first time a named Taliban commander has confirmed that the group is negotiating with the Pakistani government. Still, it was unclear whether Mohammad speaks for the entirety of the increasingly factionalized network, especially its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Asked about the alleged negotiations, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that his government has followed a policy of "dialogue, deterrence and development" to tackle militants who are based in the lawless, Afghan border region.

"That is a continuing process," he told a local television station.

Pakistani officials have earlier stated that they do not talk to militants unless they surrender.

Despite pushing for peace talks to end the related insurgency in Afghanistan, Washington is unlikely to support similar efforts to strike a deal in Pakistan. Ties between the two countries have been on a downward trend all year, and were dealt a massive blow by an airstrike by U.S-led forces in Afghanistan two weeks ago that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The attack triggered fresh anti-Americanism in the country, including within the army ranks.

American forces and their NATO and Afghan allies regularly come under attack from Afghan militants and al-Qaeda operatives, who live alongside Pakistani Taliban militants in the border region. Previous peace deals in the northwest didn't last long, and gave militants time to rest and regroup, as well as space for foreign extremists to prosper.

Mohammad said his men had held "peace talks with relevant government officials."

"They are progressing well, and we may soon sign a formal peace agreement with the government," he said in a telephone conversation.

He didn't specify the terms being discussed, but past deals have essentially been nonaggression pacts: the militants get to live unmolested by the army in the border regions, which the state has long been content to leave as an ungoverned space for strategic reasons, so long as they do not attack inside Pakistan. The army is accused of tolerating or supporting militants there who strike into Afghanistan.

After heavy U.S. pressure and billions in aid, the army pummelled militants in the northwest over the past four years, helped greatly by American-fired drone strikes, killing many hundreds but falling well short of victory. Nevertheless, the pressure may have helped put the insurgents into talks, or led factions to suggest a truce.

Mohammad's main area of strength is the Bajur tribal region, where the army claims to have decimated the militants.

Mohammad said any deal in Bajur could be a "role model" for the rest of the border region. The Pakistani Taliban, closely allied with al-Qaeda, have been behind much of the violence tearing apart Pakistan over the last four and a half years. At least 35,000 people have been killed in suicide bombings, other insurgent attacks and army offensives.

Despite the Taliban's record of indiscriminate violence, much of it directed at civilians, there is political and public support for talks. In September, the weak civilian government announced it was prepared to "give peace a chance" with militants, pandering to right-wing Islamist parties and their supporters.

Many Pakistanis share the hard-line religious and anti-American views of the Taliban.

They believe the militants could be brought into the fold if only Islamabad severed its alliance with Washington, which they blame for sparking the insurgency by invading Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.