Obama team talking to Taliban in Afghanistan

The Obama administration has opened "direct, secret talks" with senior Taliban leaders who are involved in the insurgency in Afghanistan, The New Yorker is reporting.

"The discussions are continuing; they are of an exploratory nature and do not yet amount to a peace negotiation," writes Steve Coll.

"That may take some time," Coll noted. "The first secret talks between the United States and representatives of North Vietnam took place in 1968; the Paris Peace Accords, intended to end direct U.S. military involvement in the war, were not agreed on until 1973."

Coll, who noted that the talks were recommended by recently deceased diplomat Richard Holbrooke, also writes:

When asked for comment on the talks, a White House spokesman said that the remarks that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made last Friday at the Asia Society offered a "thorough representation of the U.S. position."

Clinton had tough words for the Taliban, saying that they were confronted with a choice between political compromise and ostracism as "an enemy of the international community."

She added, "I know that reconciling with an adversary that can be as brutal as the Taliban sounds distasteful, even unimaginable. And diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends. But that is not how one makes peace. President Reagan understood that when he sat down with the Soviets. And Richard Holbrooke made this his life's work. He negotiated face to face with Milosevic and ended a war."