US says it would support Saudi talks with Taliban officials

WASHINGTON, Nov 23 (KUNA) -- US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said on Monday that the United States would support any role Saudi Arabia chose to pursue in trying to engage Taliban officials.
Holbrooke denied in a press briefing reports about any direct meetings between US and Taliban officials while reminding of the July 15 speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton where she said that Taliban can rejoin the Afghan government if they renounce Al-Qaeda and lay down their arms.
Asked about Afghan President Hamid Karzai's inauguration speech where he said he asked Saudi King Abdullah to play a role in the talks with the Taliban, Holbrooke said "I will let the Saudis speak for themselves".
"I have talked to the Saudis, I have been to Riyadh; I talked to King Abdullah about it myself. We would be supportive of anything that the kingdom chose to do in this regard", he noted.
Secretary Clinton made her first trip to Afghanistan last week to attend Karzai's inauguration.
"She timed it to coincide with the inauguration precisely because we felt that the inauguration marked the end of a long, complicated process and produced a new government", said Holbrooke.
"We have been waiting a long time to work with a government that was a result of the elections. And whatever one thinks of the elections they were not perfect, and we said from the beginning they would not be perfect, they produced a winner and a legitimate government with which we intend to work as closely as possible", he added.
Holbrooke described Clinton's meeting with Karzai as "very warm, very cordial meeting, substantially different in tone from meetings during the election period. The election was behind us" and noted that Clinton agreed to renew the US strategic dialogue with Afghanistan and she will be leading herself the dialogue from the American side.
"We talked about anticorruption efforts and the general financial state of Afghanistan", he added while expressing "deep concern" over corruption in Afghanistan.
The United States is pressuring Karzai to form a more transparent and efficient government, but Holbrooke declined to go into details of the formation of the cabinet.
"Like any government, there are ministers that are better than other ministers. There are some ministers who have extraordinary records. I am afraid if I single one out, it won't be good for his health. So I won't single any out. But we want to work with the strong ministries".
"We want to help the Afghans help themselves. We do not want to replace a sovereign government with internationals", he added. (end) jm.bs KUNA 240033 Nov 09NNNN