Veteran Afghan commanders to negotiate with Taliban

It will be a challenge for any one force to rule Afghanistan for long without consensus among the many ethnic groups.

A band of veteran Afghan leaders, including two regional commanders, are angling for talks with the Taliban and plan to meet within weeks to form a new front for holding negotiations on the country’s next government. Khalid Noor, son of Atta Mohammad Noor, the once-powerful governor of northern Afghanistan’s Balkh province, said the group comprises veteran ethnic Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and others opposed to the Taliban’s takeover. “We prefer to negotiate collectively, because it is not that the problem of Afghanistan will be solved just by one of us,” Noor, 27, said in an interview from an undisclosed location.