WASHINGTON //Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, said yesterday that the United States military is pursuing peace talks with the Taliban.
He made his remarks in a live TV broadcast after addressing a youth conference in Kabul. The talks, he said, were aimed at ending the violence and bringing the Taliban back into the political system.
He added that the Afghan government was not involved in the talks, contradicting reports of a statement he had made earlier yesterday. In that statement, Mr Karzai told reporters that peace talks had been under way for the past year.
"In the course of this year, there have been peace talks with the Taliban and our own countrymen," Mr Karzai said. "Peace talks have started with them already and it is going well. Foreign militaries, especially the United States of America, are going ahead with these negotiations."
There have been reports of US-Taliban contacts in the past, but none have ever been confirmed. US officials have not acknowledged any, and the Taliban have denied them.
Earlier this month, however, Robert Gates, the outgoing US secretary of defence, said it might be possible to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban if allied military gains in Afghanistan were not reversed.
"I believe that if we can hold on to the territory that has been recaptured from the Taliban … we will be in a position toward the end of this year to perhaps have a successful opening with respect to reconciliation, or at least be in a position where we can say we've turned a corner here in Afghanistan," Mr Gates told CNN.
Officials have long said the US would not stand in the way of any rapprochement with the Taliban, which was ultimately an Afghan decision. At a briefing in Washington in April, Dereck Hogan, senior adviser to the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the US "has always been an advocate of a political settlement to the conflict".
"What that means for us, first and foremost, is that this must be a process led by the Afghan government."
For the US to accept the Taliban to become part of the political process again would necessitate that Afghan's former rulers accede to three conditions, Mr Hogan said. He named the three conditions as respecting the Afghan constitution, breaking ties with al Qa'eda and renouncing violence.
With the killing of Osama bin Laden, and the sense in Washington that al Qa'eda is no longer - and has not been for a while - a significant actor in Afghanistan, that second condition at least is a step closer.
Moreover, the UN Security Council voted unanimously on Friday to treat al Qa'eda and the Taliban separately when it comes to UN sanctions, a move aimed at supporting a reconciliation effort.
The US and its allies in Afghanistan are also looking to begin a withdrawal of troops this summer, with a view to completing a pullback in 2014. Successful talks with the Taliban would significantly ease that transition.
Americans are increasingly war weary. A CNN/Opinion Research Poll on June 9 found that, since the killing of bin Laden, some 75 per cent of respondents wanted the US to withdraw some or all of its troops from Afghanistan immediately, a ten point rise from May. One problem for any reconciliation process, however, has been finding credible Taliban leaders to talk to. Most of the movement's leaders are either unknowns or in hiding. There have been instances of some Afghans presenting themselves as Taliban leaders to wrest concessions from the government on local issues.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”