Afghan leader says end to terrorism a condition for peace talks

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said international meetings next month to lay the groundwork for a possible resumption of peace talks with the Taliban had to seek an approach to the fractured insurgent movement that ensured a rejection of terrorism.

Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States are due to meet in Islamabad on Jan. 11 to try to revive a peace process that stalled in July when the news came out that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had died two years earlier.

Prospects of success have been clouded by bloody infighting in the Taliban over the leadership succession which has made it difficult to identify which parts of the movement may be open to talks and which remain committed to the insurgency.

The legitimacy of Omar's former deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who assumed the leadership in July, is rejected by some militants. Rivals who accuse him of being beholden to Pakistan are suspicious that he hid Omar's death for so long.

"It is obvious that there are groups of Taliban, not a unified movement," Ghani told a news conference on Thursday. "The fundamental issue here is the choice: choose peace or terrorism," he said. "There will be no tolerance for terrorism." - Read More at the Reuters

Afghan leader says end to terrorism a condition for peace talks

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