Iqbal Khan
The first Review session of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Solidarity (APAPPS) was held in Islamabad on 10 June 2019. Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary and Afghanistan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Idrees Zaman led respective delegations. During the meeting, the Foreign Secretary reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to a peaceful, stable, united and prosperous Afghanistan, at peace within and at peace with its neighbours. Pakistan also emphasized that durable peace and stability could be achieved only through an inclusive, Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace and reconciliation process.
Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has claimed that Afghan peace process in entering a new phase. He will shortly resume talks with the Taliban “to move the peace process forward”, the State Department announced. There have been some progress in earlier rounds but the Taliban’s insistence on clear timeframe for the US troops withdrawal and refusal to engage with the Kabul administration have continued to hamper the forward movement. In tandem, next intra-Afghan round under Moscow Format is also in the offing. Exact date and place have not been fixed, but there are two major options on the table: Qatar’s capital of Doha and Germany.
Germany, a leading donor and member of the NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan, has been talking with the Taliban and the Afghan government in an effort to restart intra-Afghan peace talks to end the conflict. Berlin’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Markus Potzel, has visited Kabul for talks with the Afghan government and met Taliban officials in Doha at least twice last month. “The current chance for a process toward a more peaceful Afghanistan should not be missed. If the friends of Afghanistan – and Germany is one of them – together can help in this effort, then we should do it,” Potzel said. “In the end, only the Afghans themselves, including the Taliban, can decide upon the future of their country.” A major meeting between the Taliban and Kabul was abruptly cancelled in April after disagreements with the host nation, Qatar, over names on the list. It would have been the first meeting of its kind since the Taliban were ousted from power by a US-led coalition in 2001, and came amid mounting pressure from Washington to find a diplomatic solution to hostilities.
Recent Moscow meeting (May 28-30) showed Russia’s growing interest in Afghanistan. The intra-Afghan consultations and Moscow Format meetings have elevated the process of restoring peace in the country to an entirely new level, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. “Activities within the framework of the Moscow Format and the intra-Afghan dialogue meetings, which marked the beginning of a new phase of the peace process and maximized its legitimacy by involving all political forces of the country, including the opposition, are intended to make an important contribution to Afghan settlement,” Lavrov said at a meeting that marked the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and Afghanistan.
Confusion mixed with despair in Afghanistan on June 01, as former president Hamid Karzai erroneously declared that the Taliban had announced an Eid holiday ceasefire. Taliban quickly dismissed these reports saying the former president may be referring to a message about last year’s Eid holiday ceasefire. “It is hoped that media and social media users do not become victims of (this) mistake,” said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. Soon after Karzai’s team acknowledged the mistake.
“We sent the statement based on the audio clip that had been published… by the Taliban. And, we were told that the clip is from today,” said Karzai spokesman Yusof Saha. It came as disappointment to war weary Afghans, who had pinned their hopes on a last year like truce for the Eid holiday.
Confusion came on the heels of two days of intra-Afghan talks in Moscow. Participants said they’d had “productive and constructive” discussions focusing on several issues but stopped short of announcing a new ceasefire deal. The US had also made repeated calls to reduce violence during ongoing negotiations. The expectations out of Moscow meeting were bigger.” The main hurdle was the cease-fire issue. Though most participants saw a cease-fire as the beginning of peace, there was nothing about a cease-fire in the final statement. Hamid Karzai said the participants spoke about all the issues that are necessary for lasting peace in Afghanistan.
Zalmay Khalilzad has once again stated that a “substantial progress” has been made during ongoing talks with the Taliban as he discussed “additional steps” Pakistan may take to further expedite the process. His statement came after he wrapped up his trip to Islamabad on June 03, where held talks with senior Foreign Office officials and also met Prime Minister Imran Khan and Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa. Khalilzad’s visit came as Afghan Taliban refused to agree on a ceasefire during Eid but said talks with the US would continue.
The US Embassy in Islamabad said Khalilzad held discussions with Pakistani leadership on developments in the Afghan peace process. Khalilzad noted that the United States continues to be encouraged by the role Pakistan has played to advance the peace process and discussed additional positive steps that Pakistan can take and the importance of recent efforts for improving US-Pakistan relations. Khalilzad will “encourage all parties to work towards intra-Afghan negotiations that lead to a final peace settlement”, the State Department added.
Despite uncertainty Khalilzad saw some positives in the Eid message given by Afghan Taliban chief. Khalilzad said that the statement provides “a desire to participate in dialogue with other Afghans and in a final political settlement that will require power sharing. “All good things.”
In his Eid message, the Taliban leader Haibatullah Akhundzada stressed on his previous stance about an end to the presence of the US military in Afghanistan and said the group is open for talks but they expect “honesty” from the United States. The message from Akhundzada came after the sixth round of Taliban-US talks that ended last month in Qatar with little sign of progress and amid continued bloodshed across Afghanistan. “No one should expect us to pour cold water on the heated battlefronts of jihad or forget our 40-year sacrifices before reaching our objectives,” Taliban chief said in a rare message. “The doors of dialogue and negotiations have been kept open and at this very moment, the (Taliban) negotiation team… is engaged in negotiations with the American side,” Akhundzada said.
Taliban spokesman Mohammad Suhail Shaheen said the Taliban will be ready to talk with all Afghans, including those from the Ghani administration once the country is “liberated.” “We oppose the election, because a real, transparent election cannot be held under occupation. This is our view. We want our country first to be liberated and then the Afghan people will decide its future. “A free Afghanistan is one of our dreams, that is why we have made so many sacrifices,” he said. Shaheen added that the Taliban opposes a temporary cease-fire as it wants a permanent one, and this is possible only when foreign occupation ends. He said the Taliban refuses to talk to the Afghan government because to end the occupation, it is necessary to talk to occupiers. “And it is clear that the occupiers are the Americans,” Shaheen said.
With so many processed in the run, one thing is clear the key to Afghan peace is with the US-unconditional military withdrawal-while time is on Taliban’s side.
Writer is a freelance columnist;
e-mail: Iqbal.khan9999@yahoo.com
