Taliban 'must be included' in Afghanistan

Updated 09.01 Tue Sep 25 2007

Keywords: labour party, defence, labour, des browne, afghanistan

Defence Secretary Des Browne has admitted the Taliban must be involved in a successful Afghanistan peace process.

Mr Browne told a fringe event at the Labour Conference it will be impossible to establish a western legal system there and argued that an "Islamic-based" solution must be accepted instead.

"The Taliban will need to be involved in the peace process because they are not going away any more than I suspect Hamas are going away from Palestine" - Des Browne

He echoed comments by General Sir Richard Dannatt, head of the Army, who said in June that the UK faces a "generation of conflict".

Mr Browne said Britain must be prepared for a commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan lasting for decades, or even generations.

He said: "In Afghanistan, at some stage, the Taliban will need to be involved in the peace process because they are not going away any more than I suspect Hamas are going away from Palestine.

"But in my view, those who convene that process are entitled to say there are some basic parameters that people ought to apply to their engagement."

He added: "There is no successful peacebuilding process in the world that has not been a continued engagement. People need to stay with these discussions with these engagements through their difficulties.

"If we say, for example, that we have no possibility, and I believe this, of implanting in a country like Afghanistan a system of law which has its roots in a sort of Judeo-Christian or Romano-system then we must accept that we must find some solution that has its roots in Islamic law."

Mr Browne also told delegates it was hard to engage Labour in "a progressive agenda" in relation to defence.

He said: "There are significant questions we need to ask ourselves as a party about our relationship with defence policy and consequently about those who we ask to deliver it.

"We should be much more advanced than we are as a party after 100 years in relation to this.

"Because the people we ask to deliver this, the people who are dying in the sands of Afghanistan, the people who are driving the streets of Basra trying to deliver some sort of stability and security are our people, they are from our estates and our communities."

General Dannatt warned last week that lack of public appreciation for Britain's military effort in Iraq and Afghanistan was in danger of "sapping" the willingness of troops to serve on such dangerous operations.