“The shift of momentum is not yet strong enough to convince the Taliban leaders that they are in fact going to lose,” Gates told lawmakers during a congressional hearing.
“And it’s when they begin to have doubts whether they can be successful that they may be willing to make a deal. I don’t think we’re there yet,” he added.
Gates’s comments, upholding Washington’s long-standing concerns, came the same day a negotiator for one of Afghanistan’s main insurgent groups, Hezb-i-Islami, said its leadership was ready to make peace and act as a “bridge” to the Taliban, if Washington fulfills plans to start pulling out troops next year.
Hezb-i-Islami negotiator Mohammad Daoud Abedi told Reuters the decision to present a peace plan was taken as a direct response to a speech by US President Barack Obama in December. Obama announced plans to deploy an extra 30,000 US but set a mid-2011 target to begin a withdrawal.
“There is a formula: ‘no enemy is an enemy forever, no friend is a friend forever,’“ Abedi said. “If that’s what the international community with the leadership of the United States of America is planning — to leave — we better make the situation honorable enough for them to leave with honour.”
