Karzai's Peace Plan: Exile Taliban Leaders

Plan calls for "deradicalization" classes, jobs
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted May 6, 2010 8:03 AM CDT
Karzai's Peace Plan: Exile Taliban Leaders
In this image made on Sunday, April 11, 2010, Afghan President Hamid Karzai talks during a meeting with elders in Kunduz, Afghanistan.   (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic, Pool)

Taliban leaders would be allowed to go peacefully into exile, while their warriors would be given jobs and “deradicalization” classes under a new peace plan that will be proposed later this month by Hamid Karzai's government in Afghanistan. The write-up seen by the Guardian refers to Taliban fighters as “angry brothers,” to drive home the idea that they are not ideologically motivated.

The international community is eager to see such a reintegration plan, and has chipped in $160 million to pay for it. But Karzai has been frustrated by US opposition to high-level talks with Taliban leaders, some of whom seem willing to talk. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, for example, sent a peace delegation to Kabul in March, and some speculate he'd be among the first to accept exile. (More Afghanistan stories.)

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