U.N. envoy meets Afghan insurgents in Kabul

Staffan De Mistura, the new Special Representative of the United Nations for Afghanistan, speaks during a news conference in Kabul March 23, 2010.

KABUL (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan met delegates from one of the country's main insurgent groups in Kabul on Thursday, the first Western diplomat to meet them since they arrived in the capital for peace talks with the government.

Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.'s new chief representative in Afghanistan, met a delegation from Hezb-i-Islami at a hotel in Kabul, the mission said. Hezb-i-Islami is one of three insurgent factions fighting against foreign troops in Afghanistan.

"(De Mistura) listened to their points and indicated that their visit in Kabul and the ongoing discussions with Afghan authorities further underscored the importance of Afghan-led dialogue in order to bring stability to this country," the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement.

A spokesman for de Mistura declined to give any further details about what was discussed with Hezb-i-Islami.

It is the first known meeting between a Western official and the group since they arrived in Kabul, and comes weeks before President Hamid Karzai plans a peace "jirga" -- or council of elders -- to which the Taliban have been invited.

On Wednesday, Hezb-i-Islami negotiator Mohammad Daoud Abedi told Reuters its leadership was ready to make peace and act as a "bridge" to the Taliban if Washington fulfils plans to start pulling out troops next year.

Abedi said the decision to present a peace plan was a direct response to a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama in December, when Obama announced plans to deploy an extra 30,000 U.S. troops but set a mid-2011 target to begin a withdrawal.

Reaching out to insurgents, in particular the Taliban, which NATO regards as a much bigger threat than Hezb-i-Islami, is one of Karzai's main priorities and has long had the backing of the United Nations.

Washington, while it supports plans to reintegrate low-level fighters back into Afghan society, has cautiously backed Afghan government efforts to reconcile with senior insurgents, provided they lay down their weapons and repudiate al Qaeda.

On Thursday, the United Nations also urged Afghanistan to repeal a law that offers blanket immunity to those accused of war crimes before 2001. Karzai had refused to sign the law when it was passed by parliament in 2007, but rights groups say they learned just this year that it had been enacted anyway.

The law protects powerful former warlords in Karzai's government and could also shield Hezb-i-Islami's veteran guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose forces have been accused of killing thousands in the 1990s.

The chief U.N. human rights officer in Kabul, Norah Niland, said the law "contravenes Afghanistan's obligations of international law, it green-lights impunity and of course continues human rights violations."

"This law is likely to undermine efforts to secure genuine reconciliation," she added.

Rights groups have called on the United States to denounce the law but Washington has so far said little. U.S. embassy spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said: "We take seriously the concerns this law raises," but did not say it should be repealed.

TOO SOON FOR TALIBAN TALKS

Hezb-i-Islami is based mainly in the east and northeast of Afghanistan. The Taliban are more active in their traditional southern heartlands of Kandahar and Helmand, where they are battling thousands of mainly U.S. and British troops.

Most of the 30,000 extra U.S. troops pledged by Obama this year are headed to those southern areas in a bid to turn the tide against the Taliban, now seen as stronger than at any time since they were driven from power in 2001.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday the timing was still not right for reconciliation with senior Afghan Taliban leaders, acknowledging military pressure had yet to weaken the group enough.

"The shift of momentum is not yet strong enough to convince the Taliban leaders that they are in fact going to lose," Gates told lawmakers during a congressional hearing.

"And it's when they begin to have doubts whether they can be successful that they may be willing to make a deal. I don't think we're there yet," he said.

U.S. officials have repeatedly said an American withdrawal will be gradual, at a speed that will depend on conditions on the ground and Afghanistan's ability to provide for its own security.

Islamabad has also offered to play a role in negotiations with the Taliban, and its recent arrest of a top Afghan Taliban commander has increased speculation that Pakistan wants to have a place at the table when talks occur.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, on a visit to Washington for high-level talks with the United States, said he had discussed with Karzai what role Pakistan could play.

Qureshi told reporters at a joint news conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton he saw reconciliation as an "Afghan-led, Afghan-owned" process.

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart, Adam Entous and Sue Pleming in WASHINGTON and Peter Graff and Jonathon Burch in KABUL; Editing by Alex Richardson)