US Had Secret Talks With Haqqani Network

Meeting was set up by Pakistan's ISI
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2011 1:37 PM CDT
US Had Secret Talks With Haqqani Network
In this Aug. 22, 1998 file photo, Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the militant group the Haqqani network, speaks during an interview in Miram Shah, Pakistan.   (AP Photo/Mohammed Riaz, File)

The US held at least one secret peace negotiation this summer with the Haqqani Network, the militant group at the center of its current public spat with Pakistan, senior officials tell the Wall Street Journal. The meeting was set up by Pakistani intelligence, which the US says confirms its suspicions of the cozy relationship between the two.

The US has long said that any reconciliation with the Haqqani network is impossible. “We've got no illusions about what the Haqqanis ultimately are,” one senior official says, but the “war is going to end with a deal. That's what we're trying to make inevitable." The talks appear to have yielded little progress—an official described them as “early and not very well defined”—and came before their alleged attack on the US embassy in Kabul. (More Haqqani Network stories.)

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