UN wants some Taliban off terror list

The top UN envoy in Afghanistan has urged Afghan officials to seek the removal of at least some senior Taliban leaders from the world body's list of terrorists, as a first step toward opening direct negotiations with the insurgent group.
In an interview with The New York Times, Kai Eide, the UN Secretary-General's special representative, also implored the American military to speed its review of the roughly 750 detainees in its military prisons here another principal grievance of Taliban leaders.
Until recently, The Times said the Americans were holding those prisoners at a makeshift detention center at Bagram Air Base and refusing to release their names.
Together, Eide said he hoped that the two steps would eventually open the way to face-to-face talks between Afghan officials and Taliban leaders. The two sides have been at an impasse for years over almost every fundamental issue, including the issue of talking itself.
If you want relevant results, then you have to talk to the relevant person in authority, Eide said. I think the time has come to do it.
In recent days, the newspaper noted Afghan and American officials have signaled their willingness to take some steps that might ultimately lead to direct negotiations, including striking the names of some Taliban leaders from the terrorist list, as Eide is suggesting.
The remarks by Eide were the latest in a series of Afghan and Western efforts to engage the Taliban movement with diplomatic and political means, even as a new American-led military effort was under way here, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Kabul on Monday.
American, Afghan and NATO leaders are also preparing to start an ambitious programme to persuade rank-and-file Taliban fighters to give up in exchange for schooling and jobs. That plan, expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, will be the focus of an international conference this week in London.
The plan aims at the bottom of the Taliban hierarchy the foot soldiers who are widely perceived as mostly poor, illiterate, and susceptible to promises of money and jobs, The Times said.
Eide, who will leave his post in March, said that such efforts at reintegration would be useful but not enough. While some rank-and-file Taliban soldiers might be fighting for economic reasons, he said, the motives of most were more complex. The Talibans leaders exert more control over the foot soldiers than they are given credit for, he said.
I dont believe its as simple as saying that these are people who are unemployed, and if we find them employment they will go our way, Eide said. Reintegration by itself is not enough.
In the past, talks between the Afghan government and the insurgents have foundered on a few core issues, the newspaper noted. Afghan leaders have demanded that the Taliban forswear violence and their association with al Qaeda before talks can begin. For their part, the Taliban have demanded that the Americans and other foreign forces leave the country first.
But some Taliban leaders have indicated that they might be willing to engage in some sort of discussions if their names were stricken from the United Nations so-called black list, according to The Times. The list contains the names of 144 Taliban leaders, including Mullah Mohammad Omar, the movements leader, as well as 257 from Al Qaeda. Under United Nations Resolution 1267, governments are obliged to freeze the bank accounts of those on the list and to prevent them from traveling.
Some Taliban leaders say the black list prevents them from entering into negotiations if they show their face, they say, they would be arrested, it said.
This would allow the Taliban to appear in public, Arsalan Rahmani, a former deputy minister with the Taliban who now lives in Kabul, was quoted as saying. It would allow the possibility of starting negotiations in a third country.
Eide said he did not believe that senior Taliban leaders like Mullah Omar should be removed from the list.
But some second-tier Taliban should be taken from the list, he said. Those leaders are not necessarily associated with terrorist acts but might be able to speak for the movement, he said, and might be willing to reciprocate a good-will gesture.
The request to strike any Taliban names from the United Nations list would have to made by the Afghan government. In the past, Afghan officials have indicated that they might be willing to take some names off even that of Mullah Omar. But they have kept details and their ultimate intentions under wraps, the paper said.
Last week, the American envoy to the region signaled some willingness to allow the names of some Taliban to be taken off the list as long as they are not senior commanders responsible for atrocities or associated with al Qaeda.
A lot of the names dont mean much to me, Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administrations special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said last week in Kabul. Some of the people on the list are dead, some shouldnt be on the list and some are among the most dangerous people in the world.
I would be all in favor of looking at the list on a case-by-case basis to see if there are people on the list who are on the list by mistake and should be removed, or in fact are dead, he said.
Mr. Holbrooke showed no willingness to ease up on the leaders of the insurgency, including Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Islamic Party, a group fighting the government and the Americans. I cant imagine what would justify such an action at this time, he said, and I dont know anyone who is suggesting that.
As for the Taliban prisoners, American officials say that they imposed a more rigorous review process several months ago, and that they are examining the case of each detainee, according to the Times. This month, after years of keeping the names of detainees secret, the American military released the names of 645 detainees being held in the main detention center outside of Kabul.
Since September, when the new review process was imposed, the Americans have reviewed the cases of 576 detainees, and 66 of those have been released, Col. Stephen Clutter, a United States military spokesman, was quoted as saying. A review of all 645 detainees will be completed by the end of March, he added. Eide said he hoped it would go further.
There needs to be a more comprehensive review of the list that has now been published, Eide said.