Gates: Military Pressure Key to Talks with Taliban

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Taliban will only negotiate when they feel they are under greater military pressure.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Saturday that the U.S. and Afghan governments have held talks with Taliban emissaries in an effort to end the nearly 10-year war.

Gates says there's been "outreach" to the Taliban by the U.S. and others, but he describes the contacts as "very preliminary."

Gates tells CNN's "State of the Union" that he doesn't think the talks will make any "substantive" progress until at least the winter. He says that before the Taliban are willing to have "a serious conversation," they'll have to feel under military pressure and begin to believe that they can't win.

He says a political outcome is the way that most wars end.