US undecided on Pakistan offer to mediate with Taliban factions: NYT

NEW YORK - The United States has not made up its mind about Pakistan's offer to mediate with Taliban factions like the Haqqani group, over which it has some influence, in an effort to resolve the Afghan war, a leading American newspaper reported Wednesday.
The offer, aimed at preserving Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan once the Americans leave, could both help and hurt American interests as Washington debates reconciling with the Taliban, The New York Times said in a dispatch from Islamabad.
Citing American and Pakistani officials, the newspaper said Pakistan offer is also aimed at stem the growing Indian presence there.
"Pakistan's Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani made clear Pakistan's willingness to mediate at a meeting late last month at Nato headquarters with top American military officials," the Times reported citing a senior American military official familiar with the meeting.
"The Pakistani offer makes clear that any stable solution to the war will have to take into account Afghanistan's neighbours, in a region where Pakistan, India, China, Iran and others all jostle for power," it said.
What the Pakistanis can offer is their influence over the Taliban network of Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani, whose forces American commanders say are the most lethal battling American and Nato soldiers in Afghanistan.
"In return for trying to rein in the Haqqanis, Pakistan will be looking for a friendly Afghanistan and for ways to stem the growing Indian presence there," the Times reported citing Pakistani and American officials.
The Americans have been pushing General Kayani to launch an offensive against the Haqqanis' base in North Waziristan, it said. But General Kayani, who pleased the Americans with an operation against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan last autumn, is not prepared to do so.
"There is no need at this point to start a steamroller operation in North Waziristan," he told reporters last week.
Last month he took General Stanley McChrystal, commander of US Forces in Afghanistan, on a helicopter tour over the mountains of the Swat Valley, where Pakistani paratroopers landed last summer to flush out Taliban insurgents.
"The message was that the Pakistan Army still regarded India as its primary enemy and was stretched too thin to open a new front," The Times said.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration is still debating the contours of any negotiated solution, US officials said.
"But a baseline for Pakistan would be for it to engineer a separation between the Haqqani network and the Al-Qaeda leadership," they added.
The recent surge in drone attacks in Pakistan's ungoverned tribal region replicates the White House' concern in the region, as it knows that even though Islamabad is offering to negotiate between with the proscribed extremist network, it is not doing enough against extremists based in terror hot beds based inside the country.
However, for the time being the US is looking for military help from Pakistan to clamp down the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in south Afghanistan, where the Haqqanis command an estimated 4,000 fighters.