Afghans to shun U.S.

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Wednesday his government would not join U.S. peace talks with the Taliban until they were led by Afghans and would suspend negotiations with the United States on a troop pact.

The United States and the Taliban have said officials from both sides will meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on Thursday, raising hopes for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan after 12 years of bloody and costly war between American-led forces and the insurgents.

Fighting, however, continues in the war-ravaged nation. Four U.S. soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on the heavily fortified Bagram base near Kabul late on Tuesday, international military officials said.

“As long as the peace process is not Afghan-led, the High Peace Council will not participate in the talks in Qatar,” Karzai said in a statement, referring to a body he set up in 2010 to seek a negotiated peace with the Taliban. A senior Afghan official told Reuters the government was unhappy over the official status being given to the Taliban, who opened an office in Doha on Tuesday.

The Taliban’s spokesman in Qatar on Wednesday confirmed the insurgency movement would attend Thursday’s meeting with U.S. officials, but gave no time for the talks. The spokesman, Mohammed Naeem, told Reuters by telephone that no Afghan government officials would be at that meeting.

A U.S. delegation had arrived in Qatar earlier for the talks, a diplomatic source said.

Karzai said the opening of the Taliban office in Qatar showed the United States had failed to honor promises made to the Afghan state about the role of that office.

The Afghan official said the office gave the Taliban “an official identity”, which the Kabul government objected to.

“The U.S. officials told us the office will be used to move peace talks forward, but not to give them an identity,” the official said.

“The Taliban’s flag and the banner of the Islamic Emirate was something we did not expect,” the official said, referring to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the name the Taliban used during their rule.

On Tuesday, Karzai had said his government would also send a team to Qatar but added the talks should quickly be moved to Afghanistan.

PARWIZ Reuters An Afghan policeman keeps watch after an operation in Sorkhrod district of Jalalabad province, on Wednesday. Police officers captured two suspected Taliban insurgents and killed four others during the overnight ambush, according to deputy police chief...