The arrests of top Taliban figures in Pakistan abruptly halted secret U.N. contacts with the insurgency at a time when the efforts were gathering momentum, the U.N.'s former envoy to Afghanistan said Friday. Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat who just stepped down from the U.N. post here in the Afghan capital, said the discussions that he and others from the United Nations had with senior Taliban members began in the spring of 2009 and included face-to-face conversations in Dubai and elsewhere. He criticized Pakistan for arresting the Taliban's No. 2 and other members of the insurgency, saying the Pakistanis surely knew the roles these figures had in efforts to find a political resolution to the 8-year-old war. Pakistan denies the arrests were linked to reconciliation talks.
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