Afghan peace mediators in contact with Mullah Omar

KABUL (Reuters) - Ex-Taliban officials now acting as intermediaries have contacted Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and other senior militants in a bid to set up peace talks with the Afghan government, a member of the team said on Wednesday.

"We are not talking to junior people, certainly, but with the leadership council, Mullah Sahib and Hekmatyar," said Arsala Rahmani, using a respectful term for Mullah Omar and also referring to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a hardline Islamist guerrilla leader wanted by the United States.

Rahmani is part of a team of senior former Taliban officials trying to mediate between President Hamid Karzai and the insurgents since late last year.

The mediators are pushing the government to provide asylum for members of the Taliban and other armed opposition groups as part of an effort to pave the ground for future peace talks, he told Reuters in an interview.

Since starting the initiative, the team has held discussions with Karzai, the Western powers who have troops in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, as well as with the militant leaders, Rahmani said.

More than seven years after Mullah Omar's followers were driven from Kabul, the Taliban are making a comeback in Afghanistan and militants sharing their ideology are also on the march in neighbouring Pakistan.

U.S. President Barack Obama has spoken about the need to reach out to "moderate" Taliban as part of a new strategy this year.

Rahmani, a veteran of the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, once served as a deputy premier and later as a minister in the Taliban government.

He has since renounced membership in the militant movement and now sits in the upper house of the Afghan parliament.

DEMANDS

Rahmani said the government and armed opposition groups have exchanged demands through the mediators, who also include former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and the movement's former envoy to Pakistan, Abdul Salaam Zaeef.

Zaeef and Muttawakil spent several years in U.S. custody.

"The Taliban want to discuss the issue of their prisoners ... an end to bombardment (by foreign troops), a stop to house searches under the name of hunting the Taliban, seizure of Taliban property and arrest of their relatives," he said.

"Similarly, the government is keen that the Taliban do not destroy roads and bridges, not close or burn schools, not kill teachers and engineers and halt reconstruction works."

Both sides have shown readiness to start talks, he said, adding that his team had proposed a plan for talks to both sides.

Under the plan, members of the opposition would first be given political asylum, preferably in Saudi Arabia which is keen to act as a facilitator, Rahmani said. "We are trying to convince the government to accept this."

FOREIGN FORCES

The proposed plan would also include discussion of removing names of insurgents from wanted lists of European nations, the United States and the United Nations, as well as the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, he said. That would be followed by a ceasefire and debate on the constitution and type of government.

Karzai in recent months has said he has been pushing for the removal of some insurgents' names from wanted lists as part of an initiative to hold talks. His spokesman, without giving further details, has spoken about progress in talks with the Taliban.

The Taliban have refused to hold talks with the government as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. There are now 47,000 U.S. troops and 33,000 from other Western countries in Afghanistan, with the U.S. contingent set to rise to 68,000 by the end of this year.

Rahmani said trust-building between the government and opposition forces was essential in the first stage, and that for now he saw big differences between the sides with regard to conditions such as the presence of foreign troops.

Afghanistan's problems had an international dimension, he said, with Western troops siding with the government and the Taliban relying on support from al Qaeda and militants from Pakistan, north Africa and Sunni Muslims from Iran.

He said the difficulties in arranging talks made it unlikely that progress could be made in time for an election on Aug. 20, in which Karzai is seeking another term. But he was more hopeful over the longer term that the sides could achieve peace.

"This is a practical way and we are working ... with the world, the government and the Taliban," Rahmani said.

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