How Peace Between Afghanistan and the Taliban Foundered
OSLO — At a corner table of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital, an emissary from the Taliban’s supreme leader arrived with a message of peace.
It was 2007, as the Afghan Taliban insurgency was growing bolder. The United States-led international coalition was fixated on defeating the Taliban militarily, and that mission would only intensify when President Obama sent in tens of thousands more troops starting in 2009.
But that evening at the Marriott in Islamabad, the talk was about diplomacy, and there were no Americans in the room. Alf Arne Ramslien, a senior Norwegian diplomat who had cultivated relationships and trust within the Taliban for years, was meeting with a confidant of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the movement’s reclusive founder, who was directing the insurgency from exile in Pakistan.
The Taliban emissary gave Mr. Ramslien a list of five names that Mullah Omar had tasked with exploring the possibility of peace talks. They needed the help of a facilitator, he said, and Mr. Ramslien was it.
That exchange would initiate an intense, secretive process that over three years involved two or three meetings a month between Norwegian diplomats and fugitive Taliban representatives across cities in Asia and Europe, including Karachi, Bangkok and Oslo.
Astoundingly, the diplomats said they even had one direct, late-night audience with Mullah Omar himself — years after even senior Taliban leaders said they had last been in a room with him.
The Norwegian peace track overlapped with efforts by other countries to bring the Taliban to the table, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, and for years seemed to be making the most progress toward bringing the Taliban and Afghan officials together.
But it all eventually fell apart under the weight of military and intelligence maneuvering and of distrust among a host of countries that were taking a hand in Afghan affairs. Mr. Ramslien maintains that Pakistan, in particular, has been a central obstacle to any negotiated peace with the Taliban.
Now, for the first time, Mr. Ramslien is laying out some of the behind-the-scenes moments of triumph and setback in the three years that he helped lead Norway’s efforts to broker peace in Afghanistan.
His account, in an interview with The New York Times at his home outside Oslo, is essentially an open plea to his successors as they try to pick up the pieces and start new peace talks: Stay patient, and understand that success often starts with crazy ideas and comes in unexpected bursts — and that failure can happen regardless of your best efforts.
Mr. Ramslien shared his story just as painstaking efforts to negotiate an end to another decades-long conflict, in Colombia, seemed to be bringing results, despite a last-minute derailment by a national referendum vote.
Since 2007, efforts to negotiate an Afghan peace have had several Colombia moments — promising developments that suddenly fall apart because of bad timing, bad faith or miscalculation — without enjoying anywhere near the degree of success.
Taliban fighters rounded up by Pakistani troops in the Swat Valley in 2009. The next year, Pakistan arrested a deputy Taliban leader and five others just days before they were to meet with the Afghan government, frustrating Norwegian attempts to broker a peace.
TYLER HICKS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
That is in part because of the complex nature of a war that has spun out over nearly four decades in its various chapters, and has been fought or aided by an ever-shifting and conflicting array of international interests.
For instance, the early Norwegian efforts were so hushed that they were kept a secret even from the Americans for the first two years. The Europeans feared that the United States, which had flatly refused efforts by senior Taliban officials to surrender and reconcile with the Afghan government in 2001 and 2002, would derail their efforts by targeting any Taliban emissaries for death or imprisonment.
Today, even as the United Stat
OSLO — At a corner table of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital, an emissary from the Taliban’s supreme leader arrived with a message of peace.
It was 2007, as the Afghan Taliban insurgency was growing bolder. The United States-led international coalition was fixated on defeating the Taliban militarily, and that mission would only intensify when President Obama sent in tens of thousands more troops starting in 2009.
But that evening at the Marriott in Islamabad, the talk was about diplomacy, and there were no Americans in the room. Alf Arne Ramslien, a senior Norwegian diplomat who had cultivated relationships and trust within the Taliban for years, was meeting with a confidant of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the movement’s reclusive founder, who was directing the insurgency from exile in Pakistan.
The Taliban emissary gave Mr. Ramslien a list of five names that Mullah Omar had tasked with exploring the possibility of peace talks. They needed the help of a facilitator, he said, and Mr. Ramslien was it.
That exchange would initiate an intense, secretive process that over three years involved two or three meetings a month between Norwegian diplomats and fugitive Taliban representatives across cities in Asia and Europe, including Karachi, Bangkok and Oslo.
Astoundingly, the diplomats said they even had one direct, late-night audience with Mullah Omar himself — years after even senior Taliban leaders said they had last been in a room with him.
The Norwegian peace track overlapped with efforts by other countries to bring the Taliban to the table, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, and for years seemed to be making the most progress toward bringing the Taliban and Afghan officials together.
But it all eventually fell apart under the weight of military and intelligence maneuvering and of distrust among a host of countries that were taking a hand in Afghan affairs. Mr. Ramslien maintains that Pakistan, in particular, has been a central obstacle to any negotiated peace with the Taliban.
Now, for the first time, Mr. Ramslien is laying out some of the behind-the-scenes moments of triumph and setback in the three years that he helped lead Norway’s efforts to broker peace in Afghanistan.
His account, in an interview with The New York Times at his home outside Oslo, is essentially an open plea to his successors as they try to pick up the pieces and start new peace talks: Stay patient, and understand that success often starts with crazy ideas and comes in unexpected bursts — and that failure can happen regardless of your best efforts.
Mr. Ramslien shared his story just as painstaking efforts to negotiate an end to another decades-long conflict, in Colombia, seemed to be bringing results, despite a last-minute derailment by a national referendum vote.
Since 2007, efforts to negotiate an Afghan peace have had several Colombia moments — promising developments that suddenly fall apart because of bad timing, bad faith or miscalculation — without enjoying anywhere near the degree of success.
Taliban fighters rounded up by Pakistani troops in the Swat Valley in 2009. The next year, Pakistan arrested a deputy Taliban leader and five others just days before they were to meet with the Afghan government, frustrating Norwegian attempts to broker a peace.
TYLER HICKS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
That is in part because of the complex nature of a war that has spun out over nearly four decades in its various chapters, and has been fought or aided by an ever-shifting and conflicting array of international interests.
For instance, the early Norwegian efforts were so hushed that they were kept a secret even from the Americans for the first two years. The Europeans feared that the United States, which had flatly refused efforts by senior Taliban officials to surrender and reconcile with the Afghan government in 2001 and 2002, would derail their efforts by targeting any Taliban emissaries for death or imprisonment.
Today, even as the United Stat