Monday, 26 March 2007US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad held talks last year with presumed representatives of leading Iraqi insurgent groups in a bid to lure militant Iraqi Sunnis into the country's political process, The New York Times reported on its website Sunday.
"There were discussions with the representatives of various groups in the aftermath of the elections, and during the formation of the government before the Samarra incident, and some discussions afterwards as well," Khalilzad told The Times in an interview Friday.
The newspaper said he is the first US official to publicly acknowledge holding such talks.
The meetings began in early 2006 and were possibly the first attempts at sustained contact between senior US officials in Baghdad and the Sunni Arab insurgency, the report said.
Khalilzad flew to Jordan for some of the talks, which included self-identified representatives of the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, two leading nationalist factions, the paper said.
Khalilzad declined to give details on the meetings, but other officials said the efforts had foundered by the summer, after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, according to the report.
Khalilzad's willingness even to approach rebel groups defied the public position of some Bush administration officials that the United States does not negotiate with insurgents, The Times said.
In another sign of pragmatism, the ambassador reiterated his position that the American and Iraqi governments had to consider granting amnesty to insurgents, the report said.
"This is something that we and Iraqis, the government, will do together, and there are various types of amnesties," he said. "But the fundamental point, the goal of bringing the war to an end, the most important tribute we could pay to our soldiers who have lost their lives here would be that the cause they fought for would be embraced and accepted by their former enemies, by those who fought them."
Khalilzad, who has been nominated by President George W. Bush to be the next US ambassador to the United Nations, leaves Iraq this week.
26.03.2007
Bakutoday.net |
Monday, 26 March 2007
US
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