Authorities in London suspended a formal response on Friday to a reported accusation by a senior Afghan bureaucrat that the British introduce an impostor posing as a high Taliban chief into the presidential palace in Kabul to meet President Hamid Karzai.News of the awkward ruse emerged earlier this week in an article in The New York Times saying that a man identify himself as Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement, had held three meetings with NATO and Afghan officials, heartening hopes of a negotiated resolution to the nine-year-old war.The fake Taliban leader smooth met with President Karzai, after being flown to Kabul on a NATO plane and usher into the presidential palace, officials said told The New York Times.
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Pakistan's prime minister said Tuesday that calm talks stuck between the Afghan administration and the Taliban cannot be successful without Islamabad's help, a prompt of the influence the country has because of its chronological ties with the group.The tapping about talks has picked up in new days, fueled in part by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's corroboration that his government has had informal deliberations with the Taliban on secure peace in Afghanistan "for quite some time."Pakistan has obtainable to facilitate peace talks previously, except Afghanistan is believed to be suspicious of its motives. Pakistan helped the Taliban grab power in Afghanistan in the 1990s and many of the group's senior commander, including leader Mullah Omar, are supposed to be based along Pakistan's rugged border with Afghanistan.
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Doubts of violence and fraud are execution over Saturday's vote, in which almost 2,500 candidates are vying for 249 seats in the wolesi jirga or lower house of assembly. Afghanistan's own election watchdog has warned of a "disputatious" procedure.The poll is a test of constancy ahead of President Barack Obama's plan appraisal in December, which will likely look at the pace and scale of U.S. troop withdrawals.President Hamid Karzai's trustworthiness with his allies is also on the line, after a fraud-marred presidential vote last year, with some observer warning that a repeat of that drawn-out poll would strain relationships and could play into the Taliban's hands.
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