NATO-led coalition forces in Afghanistan are facilitating contacts in Kabul between senior Taliban officials and the Afghan government, a senior NATO official said on Wednesday.
But the official, who spoke to reporters in Brussels on condition of anonymity, said discussions were in their very early stages and could not yet be described as negotiations.
NATO allies including the United States have previously voiced their support for reconciliation efforts aimed at ending the 9-year-old war. But the extent of any Western involvement in contacts between the Taliban and President Hamid Karzai's government had been unclear.
"We have indeed facilitated to various degrees the contacts between these senior Taliban members and the highest levels of the Afghan government," the official said.
The official declined to offer specifics about the facilitating role of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, in Afghanistan.
But he said the contacts had taken place in Kabul — one of the more secure parts of Afghanistan and a risky location for top Taliban to approach without a nod from the NATO-led force.
"It would be extremely difficult for a senior Taliban member to get to Kabul without being killed or captured if ISAF were not witting. And ISAF is witting," the official said.
Afghan and U.S. officials say a peace deal is still a distant possibility but it is one that is drawing increased attention ahead of U.S. plans to start withdrawing its nearly 100,000 forces from Afghanistan next July.
The Taliban officially deny any contacts with Kabul and spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid earlier on Wednesday called such claims "propaganda."
'No military solution'
A senior U.S. general said on Wednesday that the international force had halted Taliban momentum in eastern Afghanistan.
"My feeling right now after about 120 days on the ground is that we have stopped that momentum and we've turned the tide a little bit," Major General John Campbell told a briefing.
But the Taliban remain a potent fighting force as the war enters its 10th year and top officials acknowledge an eventual political settlement is the only way to resolve the conflict.
"The U.S. supports his (Karzai's) efforts to reach out," the special U.S. envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told reporters in Paris.
"There is no military solution to this war."
The comments came the same day that NATO officials in Brussels, including Mark Sedwill, NATO's civilian representative in Kabul, briefed envoys of the 47 countries contributing to the NATO-led mission.
Sedwill said efforts toward reconciliation with Taliban insurgents were unlikely to speed up the process of transferring responsibility for security to Afghan forces, which will allow for reductions in Western troop numbers.
"I don't think it's likely to have an impact on this timeline, unless of course it proceeds at such a pace and faster than we would currently expect that it reduces the threat from the insurgency dramatically," he told a news briefing.
The NATO official played down the level of the contacts.
"What President Karzai, his spokesman, has stated is accurate: that these are in the very preliminary stages of discussions," the official said.
"So you would not yet characterize this, by any means, as a negotiation. These are preliminary discussions."
