UK Plans "Trust Fund" to Woo Taliban Fighters, The Guardian, 14 January 2010

EXCERPT: "Taliban fighters who lay down their arms will be offered money from an international trust fund under a plan being drawn up by British government officials, it emerged today. For months, British and US diplomats and intelligence officers have been approaching Taliban commanders considered 'reconcilable'. However, their approaches have been uncoordinated and often sabotaged by mutual suspicion. In particular, the US and the Karzai government have been suspicious of British attempts to persuade Taliban fighters and other groups to abandon the insurgency. British officials are now proposing that a co-ordinated international initiative, described by some as a kind of trust fund, should be set up as a key objective of the London conference on Afghanistan on 28 January. The move reflects a growing realisation in London, Washington and throughout Nato that the conflict cannot be 'won' in any military sense and that some kind of accommodation with the Taliban insurgency is inevitable."

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Related articles:
Bit-part role for Britain as US plans to control key Afghan routes, Times Online, 14 January 2010
, AFP, 14 January 2010
UK conference to focus on Afghan priorities, The Wall Street Journal, 14 January 2010
UK "paid Afghan warlord $2m to find Osama Bin Laden", BBC News, 9 January 2010
Too few British troops to defeat the Taliban, says US military, The Telegraph, 8 January 2010

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