A prominent think tank warns in a report released Sunday that the United Nations must take over ineffective U.S.-led talks with the Taliban. In the report, International Crisis Group says a U.N. mediation team is needed to prevent Afghanistan from descending into civil war when U.S. troops leave the country. The Miami Herald reports:
In a report released Sunday, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said that current negotiations were unlikely to achieve a sustainable peace because they were dominated by the U.S. and hampered by a "half-hearted and haphazard" approach by the Afghan government.
"Far from being Afghan-led, the negotiating agenda has been dominated by Washington's desire to obtain a decent interval between the planned U.S. troop drawdown and the possibility of another bloody chapter in the conflict," said the report.
The ICG said that the result thus far of international involvement in negotiations had been to embolden "spoilers" like insurgents, government officials and war profiteers, "who now recognize that the international community's most urgent priority is to exit Afghanistan with or without a settlement."
