Kevin Baron of Stars & Stripes is traveling with Secretary Gates and he reports a bold statement from General Petraeus in Kabul during the secretary’s stop-over:

Gen. David Petraeus said U.S. offiicals are seeing signs in Afghanistan that many Taliban members, including those at the “very senior level,” are preparing to take up the Afghan government’s offer of reconciliation following recent news that an official policy is forthcoming.

“The prospect for reconciliation with senior Taliban leaders certainly looms out there, and there have been approaches at [the] very senior level that hold some promise,” Petraeus said Thursday.

Juh? I note that P4 didn’t make any such statement to me in our interview two weeks ago. I had pretty much figured reconciliation would require a Big Exogenous Event like Pakistani intervention. And who knows, maybe that’s happening here — if this is for real. Wait and see if this develops into something.