ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Islamabad welcomed a measure to find a political solution to the Afghan insurgency through talks with moderate Taliban, the Pakistani foreign minister said.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Islamabad saw an opportunity in a measure to work with the Afghan government to convince moderate Taliban and other militants to lay down their weapons, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper reports.
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has requested Pakistan for help in this connection, for which Pakistan is ready to play its role," said the foreign minister.
Qureshi added that if Taliban members were ready to abandon militancy and work within the constructs of the Afghan Constitution, there was no harm in establishing a political dialogue.
Delegates at a one-day London conference on Afghanistan adopted a measure to use financial and other incentives to bring moderate elements of the mujahedin in step with the international effort to prop up the government in Kabul.
The measure is modeled after a similar effort used in Iraq at the height of the near-civil war in 2006 and 2007. Washington courted some militants in restive Anbar province to take on al-Qaida fighters, giving rise to the so-called Sons of Iraq paramilitary force.
