BERLIN (AFP) — The United States backs Kabul's offer to hold peace talks with the Taliban but believes negotiations with the radical "hard core" in Afghanistan would be hopeless, a senior US official said Tuesday.
The deputy head of the European and Eurasian Affairs office at the State Department, Kurt Volker, said Washington welcomed President Hamid Karzai's bid to sit down with radical Afghan groups, as long as they rejected violence.
"Those who formerly were fighters who want to return to society ought to be able to do so," Volker told reporters during a visit to Berlin.
"I think for the government of Afghanistan and President Karzai to want to reach out and work with people who renounce violence, who want to support the central government, who will support human rights, who will build peace and security and development in the country -- that's reconciliation, that's an important thing for the Afghan government to do and we support that."
But he warned against lowering the bar for an invitation to the negotiating table.
"There is a hard core in Afghanistan, people who don't believe in those things, people who don't want to see Afghanistan succeed, people who don't believe in human rights, who want to reimpose a very dark regime on Afghanistan and they are willing to use brutal, violence means to do that," he said.
"You can't negotiate with that kind of person -- they're aimed at a physical destruction of the country."
Karzai on Saturday made a direct offer of talks with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and radical warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, both of whom are wanted by Washington, even holding out the prospect of government posts if they gave up violence.
Both have rejected talks as long as about 50,000 foreign troops, mainly Western soldiers, are in the country.
The Taliban regrouped following their ouster from government in late 2001 in a US-led invasion and launched the insurgency.
It has claimed around 5,000 lives so far this year, most of them rebels, compared with about 4,000 last year.
Volker said other countries serving in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force including Germany needed to do their share to avoid seeing the country slide further into extremism and violence.
"Within NATO and within the international community more broadly, there are some countries that are bearing a very hard load, like the Dutch, like the Canadians, like the Australians and others.
"They want to feel a sense of solidarity -- that there are other countries that support them, that work with them, that will come in to help them if they get into trouble, that will share some of that burden."
Germany has resisted pressure within NATO to send any of its 3,000 troops to troubled southern Afghanistan where US-led forces are fighting insurgents.
Berlin has kept its contingent in the relatively calmer north and opted to focus on training security forces and rebuilding infrastructure.
Public support for the mission is also waning here, with 52 percent saying in a recent opinion poll that Germany should bring its forces home.
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