France hosts secretive inter-Afghan meeting

PARIS (AP) — Afghan officials were meeting Thursday with Taliban rebels and envoys from another Islamist militant group near Paris, looking beyond Afghanistan’s insurgency to a future long after international forces have returned home.

French hosts say the secretive, rare meeting among rival Afghans in the town of Chantilly north of Paris over two days isn’t expected to involve any horse-trading toward a possible peace and reconciliation deal in a country where long-term plans are overshadowed by the bloody, multifaceted insurgency against the Afghan government and the U.S.-led NATO troops supporting it .