New NATO chief favors dialog with moderate Taliban

Officials say three U.S. troops and one French soldier were killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan on  Saturday.

The Americans were killed in roadside bomb blasts in Kandahar province and the French soldier was killed in a gun battle north of the capital, Kabul.

The latest deaths in Afghanistan come after comments by the new head of NATO and former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen that he would be willing to talk with moderate sections of the Taliban to try and win the war there.

Barely hours after taking over the reins at NATO on Aug 1, Rasmussen told the Danish newspaper Politiken that he favors setting up negotiations with the radical Islamist Taliban in Afghanistan, Deutsche Welle reported.

However, he emphasized that such a dialogue was only possible with certain sections of the Taliban.

"There is certainly a hard core that is impossible to reach any deals with. They have only respect for military powers," he told the newspaper, "I certainly don't know why one should strike any agreements with those who are killing our soldiers."

But he said he would support dialogue with "moderate groups on the outer reaches of the Taliban." and added, "We obviously want to co-operate with those who want to contribute to a safer situation in Afghanistan and to create a framework for reconstruction and economic and social development."