“We have to give them the space to form a government and we have to give them the space to show their credentials,” Carter told the BBC.
The head of the British army on Wednesday said the world should give the Taliban the space to form a new government in Afghanistan and may discover that the insurgents cast as terrorists by the West for decades have become more reasonable.
An official representing the Islamic movement on Wednesday said the leaders of the Taliban will show themselves to the world. This is unlike during the last 20 years, when its leaders have lived largely in secret.
Britain’s chief of the defence staff, Nick Carter, said he was in contact with former Afghan President Hamid Karzai who Carter said would meet the Taliban on Wednesday.
“We have to be patient, we have to hold our nerve and we have to give them the space to form a government and we have to give them the space to show their credentials,” Carter told the BBC. “It may be that this Taliban is a different Taliban to the one that people remember from the 1990s.”
“We may well discover, if we give them the space, that this Taliban is of course more reasonable but what we absolutely have to remember is that they are not a homogenous organisation – the Taliban is a group of disparate tribal figures that come from all over rural Afghanistan.”
The Taliban were essentially “country boys” who lived by the so called “Pashtunwali”, the traditional tribal way of life and code of conduct of the Pashtun people, Carter said.
“It may well be a Taliban that is more reasonable,” Carter said. “It’s less repressive. And indeed, if you look at the way it is governing Kabul at the moment, there are some indications that it is more reasonable.”
However, some British army veterans were doubtful about the intent of Taliban.
Charlie Herbert, a former British army major general who served in Afghanistan and also worked as a senior NATO adviser, told Sky News: “People should not be seduced by these smooth words.”
“The Taliban need international recognition. They’ve taken power by force and they’re now desperate for international recognition, from China, from Russia and the West, they need that. So of course they’re going to use these charming words about equal opportunities for women,” he said.
There is no evidence the Taliban has moderated, Herbert said.
“They are waiting, they are biding their time until we leave Kabul and then the bloodletting will start when there are no journalists and no internationals to see it.”
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