Taliban leader Mullah Omar will not have a constructive role in Afghanistan's future because he is unlikely to renounce terrorism and remains "attached at the hip" to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the US State Department said Thursday, dpa reported.
State Department spokesman PJ Crowley's comments come as there are increasingly strong indications that the Afghan government was looking to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the conflict with the Taliban.
The United States and NATO have backed talks with members of the Taliban who are willing to give up violence and terrorism while accepting the Afghan government and its laws.
"We have great skepticism that Mullah Omar is going to be one of those people who takes advantage of this process," Crowley said.
"Mullah Omar has been attached at the hip to bin Laden for some time. So based on everything that we know about him today, he will not meet the criteria that we have laid out."
Omar was the leader of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan until it was ousted by US-led forces following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. The United States views Omar as complicit in the attacks because he allowed al-Qaeda to train and operate on Afghan soil.
Omar is believed to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border region since the Taliban government was toppled.
Crowley confirmed that the United States was helping facilitate talks between the Afghan government and Taliban, but would not go into details.
"We are facilitating and supporting this process ... but this is an Afghan-led process," he said, not going into the details of the US role.
The New York Times reported Thursday that US forces are permitting Taliban leaders to travel in order to meet with representatives of the Afghan government.
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