BRUSSELS — NATO has provided safe passage for top Taliban leaders to travel to Kabul for face-to-face negotiations with the U.S.-backed Afghan government, a senior alliance official said Wednesday.
The official’s account was the most detailed yet of the U.S. and NATO role in the clandestine talks, aimed at bringing an end to the 9-year-old war. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the subject publicly.
The Afghan government has previously acknowledged that it has been involved in reconciliation talks with the Taliban with some NATO help. But discussions between the two sides have been described as mostly informal and indirect message exchanges relying on mediators.
The Afghan Taliban denied the claim in a statement on its website Wednesday. The group called the notion of talks with the enemy “baseless propaganda” and said negotiations would be a “waste of time.”
If the talks succeed, the Obama administration will have to decide whether to accept a deal struck between a government backed and funded by Washington and an enemy force with ties to al-Qaeda.
Also Wednesday, six NATO service members were killed in three separate attacks across Afghanistan, military officials said, including a roadside bombing in the south that killed four troops. The other two deaths occurred in a separate explosion in the south and an attack in the east, the Western military said.
With more than two months to go, 2010 has already been the most lethal of the conflict for Western forces in Afghanistan.
The nationalities of the latest dead were not immediately disclosed.
Afghan authorities did provide the nationalities of eight civilian contractors killed in the crash near the capital of a cargo plane operating under U.S. contract. Six were Filipino, one was Indian and one was Kenyan, the Afghan military said.
The L-100 Hercules, on a flight from Bagram airfield, slammed into a steep mountainside Tuesday evening while on approach to Kabul’s airport.
The Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.
