World

U.S. Talks With The Taliban

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

February 3, 1999 / 7:59 AM EST / CBS

A senior U.S. official was meeting with a high-ranking Taliban official Wednesday in a rare interchange that was cloaked in secrecy.

U.S. and Taliban officials confirmed the talks in Islamabad between Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Rick Inderfurth and Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Jalil Akhund, but would say little else.

Neither the Taliban nor the Americans would divulge what topics were on the table, but it appeared likely that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden would top the agenda.

The United States has accused bin Laden of masterminding the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last August that killed 224 people. Bin Laden, who lives with his three wives and several hundred Arab devotees in southern Afghanistan, is protected by his Taliban hosts.

Wednesday's talks were the first face-to-face meeting since last August, when the United States fired missiles at what it suspected were terrorist training camps set up by bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan.

Bin Laden has publicly urged his followers to attack U.S. interests worldwide because he opposes the presence of U.S. troops in his native Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's two holiest sites.

The Taliban have repeatedly refused to hand bin Laden over to the United States, saying he is an honored guest in their country and it is against Afghan tribal tradition to turn a guest over to his enemies.

The Taliban also say they sought evidence of bin Laden's involvement in terrorism last year, but the United States did not present any evidence.

In a speech Tuesday to the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called Afghanistan "the focus of one of the first, most severe and most ominous battles of the post-Cold War world -- the battle against the forces of terrorism, extremism and intolerance."

U.S. press attaché in Islamabad said Inderfurth's meeting with Jalil was part of U.S. involvement in the so-called "six plus two group" of Afghanistan's neighboring states, plus Russia and the United States, which is pushing for an end to the 20-year Afghan conflict.