Why would Pakistan object to discussions between individual Taliban leaders and Afghan officials?
I think Pakistan is worried they can get cut out of this negotiating process. Pakistan also probably reads more into the negotiating process than is currently there, and doesn’t trust Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan is probably a little overly worried at this stage of the game, but I think they were hoping that they could use their influence with Afghan Taliban leadership residing inside of Pakistan to really drive these talks, to really control these talks. For one reason or the other, they feel really left out than in control. So I don’t think they have a legitimate concern but I can understand why they are worried. I think that in general, a lot of our talks in Afghanistan are too Karzai centric. What do you mean “too Karzai centric”? I’m not convinced that Karzai has the clout, the standing in the Afghan national community to really pull off any kind of serious negotiated settlement. I’m not sure that the Taliban take him seriously, I’m not sure he can deliver a wide spectr
