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Ex-Envoys Tell of Taliban Meetings
Thursday, November 8, 2001
(11:40 GMT)
By Christiane Amanpour / Chief International Correspondent
The Cable News Network

The Clinton administration's ambassador for counter-terrorism, Michael Sheehan, says he briefed the Taliban in detail in more than a dozen meetings.

LONDON, England -- CNN
On the streets and in corridors of power in the Muslim world, in the salons of Europe, people keep asking: Why has the United States never tried to talk to the Taliban about Osama Bin Laden? Where's the evidence against him? Why has the United States never presented it to the Taliban?

The answer is -- they did.

In their first television interview, the two U.S. point men on talks with the Taliban told CNN a story that is largely unknown: about their many meetings, about sharing evidence, and about ultimately failing to reach a "meeting of the minds" with the Taliban.

For nearly three years, they met for talks with the Taliban in Islamabad, Pakistan; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Kabul, Afghanistan and Bonn, Germany -- as well as in New York and Washington. Former Clinton administration official Karl Inderfurth led many of the meetings.
(More: CNN.com News Source)
2001 © Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

Dan