Danmark, Norway for dialogue with Taliban

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said in an interview published Wednesday he supported the idea of the Afghan government holding talks with the Taliban, albeit with some conditions. "A dialogue and reconciliation should be realised in conformity with the Afghan constitution and the country's international obligations," he was quoted as saying in the conservative daily Berlingske Tidende. Denmark, which currently has 700 troops serving in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, "wouldn't accept that there are talks with Taliban who support Al-Qaeda," said Moeller.  Norway also added its backing Wednesday to the political solution to Afghanistan's extremist insurgency following reports that the Afghan government has already begun talks with the Taliban. Foreign minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, on a surprise visit nine months after he escaped unharmed from an attack on a Kabul hotel, said any political process should be on the basis of the post-Taliban constitution.The head of the French military General Jean-Louis Georgelin on Wednesday backed comments by a senior British military officer's view that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable. Carleton-Smith, the country's top military officer in Afghanistan, told the Sunday Times that people should "lower their expectations" about how the conflict there would end. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Tuesday, a week before Canada votes in a general election that NATO-led forces alone cannot bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. "I don't believe - and I've said many times I don't believe - that we can pacify every corner of Afghanistan as foreign troops," said Harper in an interview with CBC television.

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