Reuters 01/02/2010

Taliban fighters should drop their demand that U.S. and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan before peace talks can be held, President Hamid Karzai said on Sunday, saying talks would make it easier for troops to leave.

Karzai is hoping to launch a peace initiative this year, but Taliban fighters have long said they are willing to negotiate only if more than 110,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan leave the country first.

Karzai said the Taliban's insistence on a withdrawal of Western troops before any talks was "not a meaningful gesture."

"The international community is here for success in defeat of terrorism, success in the defeat of extremism," Karzai told a news conference. "Therefore, they have to be satisfied that they have achieved their objective before they can leave."

The Taliban should "return to their own country and work for peace in order for us to be able to have the U.S. and other forces to be able to have the freedom to go back home," he said.

At a conference on Afghanistan in London last Thursday, Karzai called on militants to take part in a "loya jirga" -- or large assembly of elders -- as a start to peace talks.

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