Pakistani senators tell British to talk to Taliban

ISLAMABAD, Nov 30 (Reuters) The Taliban will have to be brought into talks if NATO is to succeed in bringing stability to Afghanistan, Pakistani senators told visiting British parliamentarians today.

Several senators referred to insurgents fighting NATO, US and Afghan government forces in Afghanistan as ''the resistance'' during an exchange of views with the visiting House of Commons foreign affairs committee.

''We do feel the situation in Afghanistan has, of late, deteriorated, in part because of mistakes made by policy-makers in Washington and in London,'' said Mushahid Hussain Sayed, chairman of the Pakistani Senate's own foreign affairs committee.

''There has to be negotiations, a dialogue with all elements of Afghan society -- ethnic or political, including, frankly, members of the resistance,'' said Sayed, secretary-general of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League.

This year has been the bloodiest in an insurgency that has raged since US-led forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001.

About 3,800 people have been killed in insurgency-related violence so far this year, including scores killed in suicide attacks, and in operations by foreign forces across the country, according to the government and UN estimates.

A quarter of the victims were civilians, but hundreds of Taliban along with Afghan forces and more than 150 foreign troops have also died.

Sayed dismissed allegations that Pakistan was not doing enough to stop Taliban operating from its territory and that it was covertly supporting the insurgency.

''Pakistan is sometimes blamed, we feel unfairly, for the mistakes and ineptitude of NATO and the Western forces in Afghanistan who do not take responsibility for the own actions,'' Sayed said.

The US-led forces and NATO are often accused of alienating people in southern Afghanistan because of the civilian casualties suffered during military operations and of failing to improve people's lives despite the billions of dollars spent.

Senators from both the mainstream and Islamist opposition took up the theme that talks with the Taliban were needed.

''You have to open avenues for talking with the Taliban,'' said Latif Khosa, of the opposition Pakistan People's Party.

He backed Pakistan's strategy of using jirgas, or tribal councils, to reach out to the Taliban in the ethnic Pashtun belt straddling the border.

REUTERS PB RN2042