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Afghan President Hamid Karzai is done talking peace with the Taliban. He will focus his efforts on negotiations with Pakistan, Karzai announced, a further sign that any solution to his country's instability will have to come in part from its neighbor to the east.

It's an acknowledgement that current peace talks are simply not working, a report from The Christian Science Monitor says.

The status of peace talks have been uncertain since a suicide bomber killed the head of Mr. Karzai’s High Peace Council, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, less than two weeks ago. Though the Taliban have not claimed responsibility for the killing, the assassination raised questions about the insurgency’s willingness to engage in peace talks.

But what if the Rabbani assassination has as much to do with Pakistan – specifically the country's intelligence service – as it does with the Taliban?

The Pakistani government formally denied any involvement in the killing Sunday, a move prompted by one Afghan minister's public declaration that elements of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency had helped facilitate the killing. That allegation is "baseless and irresponsible," Pakistan's Foreign Ministry declared in a statement on Sunday.