Karzai confirms talks with Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai says there have been unofficial peace talks with the Taliban insurgents "for quite some time."

"We have been talking to the Taliban as countryman to countryman, talk in that manner," Karzai said in an interview that is to be aired Monday night on CNN's "Larry King Live." "Not as a regular official contact with the Taliban with a fixed address, but rather unofficial personal contacts have been going on for quite some time."Karzai also said he hopes the newly created High Peace Council, headed by former Afghan President Buhanuddin Rabbani, will move the peace process forward.

"The Taliban, those of whom who are Afghans and the sons of Afghan soil, who have been driven to violence by various factors beyond their control and beyond ours caused by circumstances in Afghanistan, we want them to come back to their country," Karzai said. "They are like kids who have run away ... from the family. The family should try to bring them back and give them better discipline and incorporate them back into their family and society."

Karzai said the same is not true for members of al-Qaida and "other terrorist networks who are ideologically against us or who are working against Afghanistan knowingly and out of the purpose of hatred and enmity -- those of course we have to work against."

The Washington Post had reported earlier that secret high-level talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban were under way.

The Washington Times reported Sunday that various unofficial discussions exploring ways to reach a peace accord have taken part off and on this year and last with a Brussels think tank and the governments of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia acting as conduits.

On a personal matter, Karzai denied a description of him in a book by Washington journalist Bob Woodward, "Obama's Wars," as a manic depressive who's mood depends on whether or not he is on his medications. Karzai said in the King interview he found the account "rather funny."

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