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Majority of Afghans back talks with Taliban: poll


KABUL: An overwhelming majority of Afghans support the government’s efforts to negotiate peace with Taliban insurgents, according to a poll released Tuesday that ranks insecurity as the top concern among citizens, followed by unemployment and corruption.
Some 83 per cent of Afghan adults back efforts to secure the country through negotiations with armed, anti-government groups, the survey conducted by the Asia Foundation said. That’s up from 71 per cent last year.
The report also said that 55 per cent of Afghan adults had no sympathy at all for the armed opposition groups — up from 36 per cent last year — and another 26 per cent had only a little sympathy.
Moreover, 81 per cent — 10 per cent more than last year — support programs to lure Taliban foot soldiers off the battlefield by providing assistance, jobs and housing to those who lay down their arms and reintegrate into society.
President Hamid Karzai has made reconciliation a top priority and recently formed a 70-member High Peace Council to find a political solution to the war, now in its 10th year. Officials in both the government and the Nato military coalition in Afghanistan have confirmed that contacts are being made with top insurgent leaders, but say no formal peace talks are yet under way.
The Taliban has denied that any of their top leaders are talking with the government. However, reconciliation is gaining support across the war-weary nation, according to the poll. Nearly three quarters of all respondents think government reconciliation efforts will succeed in helping stabilise the country.
Support for a peace process is highest in areas where fighting is the most intense with 89 per cent of Afghans in the east, and 85 per cent in the southeast and northwest backing reconciliation talks, the survey said.
But 20 per cent of women say they oppose the negotiations compared to only 12 per cent of men, possibly reflecting their fear that a future government that included Taliban would seek to curtail women’s freedoms.
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