The Taliban have issued a statement in Farsi on their website condemning the conference in Berlin attended by key opposition figures and leaders of National Front Ahmad Zia Massoud, Rashid Dostum, Muhammad Muhaqiq and former NDS Chief AmrullahSaleh. Since the meeting last week in Berlin, which was organized by Aspen Institute, there has been a malicious media campaign by the Government distorting lies about the conference.

The extreme reaction of Government is understandable because important opposition figures expressed serious concerns regarding the current process of talks with the Taliban to the international community and demanded a national Afghan debate about the failure of nation building and poor governance during the last ten years of international efforts caused by an over centralized power structure and highly corrupt administration. However, the accusations of Foreign Ministry and other government officials attacking those who attended the meeting are of very serious nature and provocative.

They are spreading lie to distort the agenda of the meeting. The conference was organized by Aspen Institute. Many participated, including four US congressmen and some Afghans. Elements with the Government not only condemned the conference and warned future repetition, it also leveled very serious accusations that the leaders of National Front and former NDS Chief who participated are plotting partition of Afghanistan.

In a country with strong institutions, these serious accusations of Foreign Ministry could be sued in Supreme Court or a motion of no-confidence vote called in parliament, but not in Afghanistan, where the Chief Justice is an acting-judge occupying his office against constitution under the will of President Karzai.

And more than half of the cabinet members are acting-ministers who have been rejected by parliament thrice, but still running ministries more for over a year now, all in violation of the constitution. The irony is that they use references of the same constitution in propaganda campaign to distort the agenda of Berlin conference.

The facts are quite different. The conference was not an exclusive meeting of Afghans demanding decentralization of power and parliamentary system with some US congressmen supporting it. There were two sessions by Aspen Institute in Berlin, the second being attended by some supporters of the Government too

It is interesting that the views of Government regarding the calls for federal system and that of the Taliban are very similar. Apparently the Talib sitting behind a computer across the border responsible for posting propaganda on Al-emarah websites mistook the Aspen Institute with Pashtu word "Spin" which means 'white', thus referring it as "Safeed (White) Institute".

In the statement which was published on Taliban's Shahamat website only in Farsi, ironically called the leaders of National Front 'notorious warlords'. What is Mullah Omar? Not a warlord? Amir-ul-Momaneen cannot be a warlord.

These former warlords at least don't send suicide bombers to blow up among innocent civilians. Whosever give up arms and join the democratic process accepting the Afghan constitution is no more a warlord. But it is not just the Taliban.

Western journalists are still fond of using this term in their reports. They should make sure anyone who is not involved in violence anymore is not a warlord. President Karzai himself took part in resistance leading his Popalzai tribe. Otherwisewith that notion basically everyone, who took up gun in the last three decades of resistance against Soviet Union, civil war and later against Taliban, is a warlord.

The Taliban statement also condemned the US congressmen, as if they had organized the conference in Berlin, not the "Safeed Institute". They made some clarification of the "Islamic Emirate" with following summary:
Afghanistan is home to all Afghans. Anyone who pursues the agenda of its partition through federal system, the Islamic Emirate will view them as enemy and take action.

This conference in Berlin which was organized under the patronage of famous US congressmen and supported by notorious warlords is an attempt to push Afghans towards another tragedy. The Islamic Emirate holds the US congressmen and supporters of this meeting responsible and asks them to avoid such vicious plans.

The US should learn from its defeat and think of solution to end the factors of war in Afghanistan, not fuel the fire of conflict in the region.
The Islamic Emirate strong rejects the poisonous propaganda of the enemy that the Emirate will accept some provinces and, until presence of occupying forces, Jihad will not be stopped for a moment. The Islamic Emirate will not accept any ceasefire for one moment until the presence of US troops.

The above sentences should be read as direct quote from the Taliban statement. As I wrote in previous op-ed on this page yesterday, Taliban's domestic fantasy will be the biggest hurdle for any peaceful political settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan.

With this mindset, the current process of negotiations makes us very skeptical of a positive result. There are not slightest prospects of any breakthrough. The optimists who see the confirmation of Taliban's opening an office in Qatar as a significant development towards a breakthrough in political settlement underestimate the fantasy of Taliban.

The Obama Administration is making a fatal mistake in the negotiations process with Taliban by ignoring the Afghan Government and anti-Taliban segments of Afghan society or to be clear the factions of the former Northern Alliance who are the real side against the Taliban.

Followers of Mullah Omar might come to an understanding with the US, if Obama Administration plans to completely withdraw troops from Afghanistan like that of Iraq by 2014. But those who resisted Taliban long before presence of any foreign troops will resist them again in future, more fiercely this time. Taliban clearly say they won't stop violence until withdrawal of all foreign troops.

As long as Mullah Omar is alive and hardliners lead the Taliban with patronage and safe havens in Pakistan, there will not be an end to the conflict in Afghanistan. Taliban will talk for two agendas; release of their comrades from Guantanamo and other prisons and withdrawal of US troops. It is not going to result in a political settlement as per the script of NATO and US withdrawal narrative.