Double blow for America's political strategy in Afghanistan as president says US efforts should focus on economic assistance

This article is more than 8 years old

This article is more than 8 years old

The Taliban have suspended talks with the US, saying in a statement that they were presented with unacceptable demands.

The move leaves the west's political strategy for Afghanistan in tatters days after a US soldier's massacre of 16 civilians raised questions about the future of the military campaign.

Within minutes of the insurgents' announcement, President Hamid Karzai delivered another blow to western plans by calling for US troops to leave Afghan villages immediately. In a statement following a meeting with the US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, in Kabul, Karzai said he would like to see foreign efforts shift to economic assistance and reconstruction.

If that demand is met, it could spell the end for the current coalition military strategy of pushing out insurgents and winning over civilian populations village by village.

The Taliban's decision last year to open an office in Qatar raised hopes that – after years of false starts and dead ends – there might be a real prospect of at least coming to the negotiating table with the insurgent group.

Hope of a decisive military victory over the Taliban has long been abandoned, so negotiations are a key part of western efforts to organise a withdrawal of combat troops in 2014 without allowing Afghanistan to slide back into civil war.

The statement did not go into the precise details of the US demands that prompted the Taliban to abandon talks, but it described Washington as "shaky, erratic and vague" and rejected any discussion with the government in Kabul as pointless.

"They turned their backs on their promises and started initiating baseless propaganda portraying the envoys of the Islamic Emirate as having commenced multilateral negotiations for solving the Afghan dilemma," the statement said.

However it did leave open the possibility that dialogue could resume in the future.

"The Islamic Emirate has decided to suspend all talks with Americans taking place in Qatar from today onwards until the Americans clarify their stance on the issues concerned," the Taliban said, using their own name for the insurgent movement, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The International Assistance Security Force said it was aware of Karzai's statement and that it would continue to be discussed in diplomatic channels. The US embassy could not immediately be reached for comment on either statement.