(Newser)
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The United States is talking with the Taliban, Hamid Karzai said today, in the first official glimmer of an end to the 10-year war in Afghanistan. "Peace talks have started with (the Taliban) already and it is going well," Karzai said. "The foreign military and especially the United States itself is going ahead with these negotiations," Karzai said. "The peace negotiations between (the) Afghan government and the Taliban movement are not yet based on a certain agenda or physical (meetings)," Karzai said, but "there are contacts established."
Karzai's announcement came as suicide bombers made a brazen attack on a police station in the heart of Kabul, reports the AP. The US embassy in Kabul had no comment, Reuters reports, but the UN Security Council just divided its sanctions list for al-Qaeda and the Taliban into two—a move calculated to make it easier to get the Taliban to the negotiating table. Click for more on the split.
