Afghan reconciliation unlikely without military push

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A broad Taliban shift toward reconciliation with the Afghan government is unlikely for now and the military needs to apply more pressure on insurgents, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said on Tuesday.

"I think it is too soon to suggest that there is ... a wider movement afoot, that the tide is turning in terms of reintegration and reconciliation," Morrell told reporters at a briefing at the Pentagon.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai launched an effort earlier this year to reach out to elements of the Taliban that might be willing to reconcile with the government, renounce violence and accept the new constitution.

He has formed a 70-member peace council in recent weeks to work toward negotiations.

General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces in Afghanistan, has acknowledged contacts between the Afghan government and the Taliban. But he has added it was premature to say whether those Taliban were willing to accept Karzai's terms for pursuing reconciliation.

NATO's top civilian in Afghanistan, Mark Sedwill, last week described contacts as in their "embryonic stage" and said they were not likely to bear fruit soon.

Still, the contacts, coupled with Karzai's creation of the peace council to pursue a negotiated end to Afghanistan's long-running war, have raised hopes about the prospects for reconciliation.

Morrell said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates believed ISAF and Afghan security forces needed to make more progress providing security on the ground.

"We need to take the fight more aggressively and for a greater duration to the Taliban and other extremists in Afghanistan for them to feel the kind of pressure necessary for there ... to spark a movement of reintegration and reconciliation," Morrell said.

Morrell did not say how long fighting might have to persist before serious reconciliation could advance, but he said ISAF was raising pressure on the Taliban and that security on the ground was growing.

"The operational tempo that we're now undertaking is extraordinarily fast," he said. "We have more troops than we've ever had before conducting more operations than ever before and the Taliban is clearly feeling it."

"These ink spots of security that are sort of expanding around in Helmand and now in Kandahar are growing, are expanding and are really putting the pressure, according to General Petraeus, on the insurgents," Morrell added.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)