Thursday, April 05, 2007
Legislative foreign policy: In search of the moderate Taliban
Germany, it seems, has its own issues with legislators running their own diplomatic missions:
The leader of Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) has come under fire for suggesting the country host an Afghanistan peace conference that would include "moderate" members of the militant Taliban.
Kurt Beck, who has been struggling to reinvigorate the SPD since taking over as its leader a year ago, made the comments at the end of a trip to Afghanistan, where he visited German troops and met President Hamid Karzai.
"We can explore the potential for national reconciliation by including the Taliban" in a peace conference in Germany, Beck was quoted in the German media as saying. He suggested that "moderate" members of the Islamist group might take part.
His comments were ridiculed by members of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, who rule in coalition with the SPD, and criticised by Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta.
"We've been looking for moderate Taliban for a long time and we haven't found any," Spanta told Germany's NDR radio on Thursday. "If Western politicians know of some, perhaps they could give us their addresses and names."
I did not know that sarcasm was an Afghani national trait.
In any case, Herr Beck did not even impress his own media:
German commentators dismissed his remarks as a desperate attempt to play the "peace card" for votes, nearly five years after SPD chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won re-election after loudly opposing the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
Well, yeah.
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