Afghan President gives up on talks with Taliban

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said trying to talk peace with insurgents is futile and that neighbouring Pakistan - not the Taliban - needs to be the other party in the peace talks.

Updated on: Oct 02, 2011 1:22 AM IST

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Afghan President Hamid Karzai said trying to talk peace with insurgents is futile and that neighbouring Pakistan - not the Taliban - needs to be the other party in the peace talks.

The president's remarks came on a video recording that his office released on Saturday.

Karzai has been pushing for years to reconcile with the Taliban.

He says that effort is no longer viable since a suicide bomber claiming to be a peace emissary from the Taliban killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani at his home on September 20.

Rabbani was leading Karzai's effort to broker peace with the Taliban.Karzai says the only way forward is for Afghanistan to negotiate with Pakistan.Pak hand in Rabbani killing

Afghanistan's intelligence agency said on Saturday that it had handed Pakistan evidence that the Taliban's leadership plotted the recent assassination of ex-president and government peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani on Pakistani soil.

The interior minister, giving testimony in parliament, also said that a master-mind of the plot - Hameedullah Akhondzada - had been arrested. The minister said Pakistan's spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), played a role in the killing.

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