Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki urged Western nations on Sunday to abandon any pursuit of dialogue with the Taliban, calling such efforts a path toward repeated failure in Afghanistan.
Mottaki referenced ongoing contacts between Western parties and the Taliban, both within the region and in Europe, warning that those involved risked repeating past mistakes. He also cautioned that extremism could not be contained indefinitely to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia.
The remarks followed reports that Afghan government representatives had met Taliban figures in Mecca the previous month to discuss ending the long-running insurgency. The Afghan government denied those reports, though President Hamid Karzai had publicly supported conditional talks with the Taliban, provided the group accepted the Afghan constitution and severed ties with Al-Qaeda.
Several Western governments had voiced openness to negotiations with the Taliban. Iran's warning carried historical weight: the hardline Sunni movement had maintained deeply hostile relations with Shiite Iran during its rule over Afghanistan, which ended with a US-led invasion seven years earlier.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in October 2008, in its own words.