UK plans 'trust fund' to woo Taliban fighters

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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 unco-ordinated 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.

the guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/14/taliban-trust-fund-british-government