Afghan President Hamid Karzai unveiled an ambitious Western-funded plan Friday to offer money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms in an effort to quell a crippling insurgency. His comments to the BBC came as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described the Taliban as part of Afghanistan's "political fabric", but said any future role would depend on insurgents laying down their weapons.

Karzai's plan echoed similar proposals by Washington to try and bring low and mid-level extremists back into mainstream society, but the leadership of Islamist insurgent groups remain hostile to negotiations. "We know as the Afghan people we must have peace at any cost," Karzai said in the television interview aired Friday ahead of an international conference on Afghanistan in London next week, where he will present the plan.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010