Shahid Murad
In a positive progression of the Afghan peace talks , Pakistan’s Advisor on Foreign Affairs Mr Sartaz Aziz has recently announced that 5th round of Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) involving Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and United States is likely to be held later this month. On the other hand, there is a negative side of the progression that Afghan officials are making damaging statements which could stall the on going negotiations with Taliban. Recently, one of the Afghan officials; Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai has tried to create the negativity and portrayed an illusive role of Pakistan towards resumption of the peace talks. However, the ongoing development and successful conduct of previous Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) meeting signified that all the participant countries are making their best efforts to support and continue the peace talks. Any negativity associated with any country, at this stage could be damaging and Afghans would be the sole and primary losers. Hence, at least Afghan government needs to wait and see, if their responsible officials could not contribute some thing positive for achieving peace and prosperity for innocent Afghans. At times, it is felt that Afghan government is indirectly helping Taliban, as the Afghan government seemingly making all out efforts to derail the peace efforts, otherwise a responsible Afghan official like Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai could not have uttered negative statements at this crucial stage. Surprisingly, in addition to such Afghan political and official figures, the former Afghan President, Mr Hamid Karzai and his notorious group is also very active to derail the peace process by sketching a very dark picture of Afghanistan’s future, blaming Pakistan.
It is indeed, dire need of the hour that the Afghan government must be in constant and regular contact with the QCG partners, it would help the participating and facilitating countries to work in harmony and adopt the same road map as collectively envisage on Afghan peace process. It also becomes mandatory for all the countries involved in the peace process that they should take all necessary practical steps towards their commitments and that the decisions taken during the QCG meetings should be practically implemented and no country should be blamed solely for its failure. It is a well recognized fact that there are some inherently unique and dynamic fault lines within Taliban hierarchy. Probably, Taliban are now united over the leadership issue and continuation of peace process has possibly been considered by them as an alternate or parallel way to fulfill their broad agenda. However, up coming time and actions of Taliban would reveal their real intension behind the plan of accepting the peace process; as an alternate or parallel choice. It must be remembered that Taliban group had already rejected to participate in the proposed direct peace talks with the Afghan government, which is a main aim of the QCG. Taliban had categorically reiterated on its pre-conditions to sit-in for peace talks, saying” unless the occupation of Afghanistan is ended, black lists eliminated and innocent prisoners freed, such futile misleading negotiations will not bear any results.”
Restoration of Afghan dialogue process is the common responsibility of all the four countries, with the recent announcement of another meeting of QCG Pakistan, China and the United States, are forthcoming to play their role to bring Taliban to the negotiating table. There are no doubts that Peace in Afghanistan is key to regional stability and Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process is vital to achieve this objective. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s concern of proper border management needs to be given due consideration by Afghanistan for at least stopping the terrorists creating mistrust between the two countries and killing of innocent lives at both sides. Besides, both the countries must work to corporate on security and counterterrorism issues. Recently, the Afghan Ambassador Dr Omar Zakhilwal rightly claimed that media in both the countries were responsible for mistrust between the two countries. In this regard, the “people to people” contacts should be enhanced to remove this mistrust. Restoration of peace could not be brought unless an environment of trust between the two countries is not nurtured. There is no second opinion that revival of peace is vital for the progress and prosperity for both the brotherly neighbouring countries.
