Musharrafs proposal to separate hardcore Taliban may not be acceptable to US

Pakistan President Pervez Musharrafs proposal to separate diehard Taliban from others might not be acceptable to the US, a lead editorial in the Boston Globe has said.

Washington, Aug 15 : Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's proposal to separate diehard Taliban from others might not be acceptable to the US, a lead editorial in the Boston Globe has said.

The editorial said, "A deal of this kind will require compromises that the jirga participants may be ready to make, but the Bush Administration - with its propensity to frame complex issues as stark conflicts of good and evil - might not be prepared to accept."

Musharraf highlighted this key compromise at last week's Pak-Afghan Jirga in Kabul when he spoke of isolating die-hard Taliban militants and try to 'win the hearts and minds' of Pashtun ethnic groups, from whom the Taliban draw their recruits, the editorial added.

The jirga's closing statement said that 50 tribal leaders from either side of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border would meet regularly to 'expedite the ongoing process of dialogue for peace and reconciliation with the opposition'. This was a tactful way of describing a strategy to co-opt Taliban elements who could be won over.

The Boston Globe notes that what Pakistan did not mention at the jirga was that the Pashtuns have been deprived of their proper share of power in Afghanistan ever since the US routed the Taliban in October 2001 with the help of the non-Pashtun Northern Alliance.

Musharraf hinted that pragmatic elements among the Taliban exist and are supported by a certain portion of the ethnic Pashtun who predominate in Afghanistan and adjacent tribal areas of Pakistan, the Boston Globe report said.

"For such a strategy to work, Musharraf will have to do his part. This does not mean halting all cross-border infiltration - an impossible task - but dismantling the Taliban's command structure. This is something Pakistan's military intelligence is capable of doing, " the paper claimed.

The editorial said that Pakistan must be assured that a post-Taliban Afghanistan will not become a repository of Indian influence, will not deprive the Pashtun of their fair share of power, and will recognise the current border between the two countries.

It would help if America and its allies generously funded reconstruction projects through the Karzai Government and ceased air attacks that kill Afghan civilians," the editorial recommends.

ANI