Obama held direct, secret talks with Afghani Taliban

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http://www.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=208896

Obama held direct, secret talks with Afghani Taliban

By JPOST.COM STAFF

02/19/2011 09:07

US President Barack Obama has held secret talks with leading members of Taliban

in Afghanistan in order to " asses which figures in Taliban's leadership, if any,

might be willing to engage informal Afghan peace negotiations, and under what

conditions, " The New Yorker magazine reported. US Secretary of State

Clinton said yesterday that only a political solution would finish the war in

Afghanistan.

" We will never kill enough insurgents to end this war out right, " Clinton said

in her speech in New York. Clinton expressed hope that US forces in Afghanistan

would succeed in severing ties between high ranking Taliban officials and

al-Qaida extremists. She added that US-led troops in Afghanistan had been

working this past year to isolate and empower peace-seeking Taliban leaders,

also to split the Taliban leadership from al-Qaida, and to encourage the

drafting of an Afghani constitution by peaceful constituents.