On February 18, 2011, “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…told New York’s Asia Society that ‘we are launching a diplomatic surge to move this conflict [in Afghanistan] toward a political outcome that shatters the alliance between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, ends the insurgency and helps to produce not only a more stable Afghanistan but a more stable region.’ It was the first tantalizing public hint that the United States was talking to the Taliban.”
– Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 119