Tolo News: In this program, host Sadaf Amiri discusses the Afghan peace process with the Second Deputy Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq who attended the Moscow talks which were held on February 5 and 6.
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – January 19, 2019
U.S. Envoy Calls On Afghanistan To Unite As Peace Talks Intensify
Ashraf Ghani (left) and Zalmay Khalilzad (right)
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
February 19, 2019
U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad has called on Afghans to put aside their differences and unite as attempts to end Afghanistan’s 17-year war gain momentum.
Khalilzad has held a series of direct talks with Taliban negotiators in the Middle East in recent months, although those discussions have not included the Western-backed Kabul government.
Key Afghan power brokers who oppose President Ashraf Ghani held talks with Taliban negotiators in Moscow on February 5-6.
Opposition politicians have criticized the negotiating team announced by Ghani that is headed by his chief of staff for not being inclusive.
Khalilzad called on the Afghan government to form a “strong, national” negotiating team.
“We need a team where government’s leadership is respected,” Khalilzad told Afghanistan’s Tolo News on February 18. “At the same time, the participation of other political elements is also a must.”
Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador, was in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he held talks with Ghani and senior political figures.
He said peace would only be achieved in Afghanistan if there was “unity, consensus, and agreement between Afghans, inside and outside the government.”
Kabul has been angered and frustrated that it has been left out of the talks.
Ghani said last week he will convene a consultative Loya Jirga, a traditional assembly of tribal, ethnic, and religious leaders, to reach a national consensus on peace talks with the Taliban.
Khalilzad is scheduled to meet Taliban negotiators for talks in Qatar on February 25.
During the previous round of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, U.S. and Taliban negotiators reached the basic framework of a possible peace deal.
The agreement calls for the Taliban to prevent international terrorist groups from basing themselves in Afghanistan and for the United States to withdraw its forces from the country.
“There are difficulties, but we have agreed with the Taliban to meet again on February 25,” he said. “We agreed in principle to talk in details and with more authenticity about two topics to find whether there is the possibility to make more progress on the issue of terrorism and the issue of forces.”
The Taliban has yet to make concessions on two key U.S. demands — implementing a cease-fire and agreeing to negotiate directly with Afghan government representatives as part of an Afghan-led, intra-Afghan peace process.
“I want a broad-based cease-fire to be announced as soon as possible,” Khalilzad said. “Secondly, there is a need for discussions and consultations among Afghans, including the [Afghan] government, to start soon.”
The Taliban has so far refused to hold talks with Kabul, calling it illegitimate.
The Taliban announced that it would hold talks with U.S. and Pakistani officials in Islamabad on February 18, but the talks were canceled after Kabul’s protests.
With reporting by Tolo News and Khaama
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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Taliban Calls Off Planned Pakistan Meeting That Angered Afghans
By RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
February 17, 2019
The Taliban has called off a planned round of peace talks in Pakistan, saying that most of the members of its negotiating team are unable to travel because they are subject to U.S. and UN sanctions.
The statement was issued on February 17 — a day before the militant group was scheduled to arrive in Islamabad to meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and possibly U.S. officials. It did not provide further details.
The announcement came hours after Afghanistan issued a protest to the UN Security Council over the planned visit.
In a letter to the Security Council seen by RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, the Afghan UN mission wrote that the Taliban-Pakistan meeting “constitutes a violation of the national sovereignty of Afghanistan.”
“These engagements, which are taking place under the pretext of support for peace efforts in Afghanistan, are void of any degree of coordination and consultation with the government of Afghanistan,” it said.
‘Legitimization Of An Armed Group’
The letter said that an invitation from Khan for a Taliban delegation to travel to Pakistan for talks “amounts to the official recognition and legitimization of an armed-group that poses a serious threat to the security and stability of Afghanistan, and whose members are sanctioned by provisions of the UN Security Council’s 1988 Committee’s Sanctions Regime.”
The Taliban have a political office in Doha, the capital of Qatar, where the negotiating-team members live. However, the team includes at least five former inmates of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay and others linked to Afghan militant groups.
On February 7, the Afghan government issued a similar protest to the Security Council regarding a trip by Taliban members to Moscow for Russia-backed peace talks, charging that the Kremlin was allowing sanctioned individuals to enter the country for the session.
The Taliban trip to Pakistan would have coincided with a two-day visit to the South Asian country by powerful Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, who arrived on February 17.
In the February 14 announcement about the planned session in Pakistan, the Taliban also said its negotiators would meet with U.S. officials. The United States had not commented on a potential meeting in Islamabad.
Tensions Running High
As an important player in the region and an Afghan neighbor, Pakistan is seen as potentially having a key role in any settlement.
But tensions run high between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Kabul and Washington have accused Islamabad of providing safe havens for terrorists on its territory, allowing them to cross the border into Afghanistan and attack government troops and Western forces. Pakistan denies the allegations.
The discussions in Islamabad would have come a week before previously scheduled February 25 talks in Qatar between U.S. officials and Taliban negotiators.
Talks between U.S. officials — including Zalmay Khalilzad, the special peace envoy for Afghanistan — have intensified in recent months.
Khalilzad and Taliban negotiators have both said progress has been made, but U.S. officials caution that much work needs to be done before an agreement can be finalized.
The U.S.-Taliban talks are aimed at finding a negotiated end to Afghanistan’s 17-year war.
The United States has been attempting to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table with officials in Kabul.
The Afghan government has been absent from the U.S.-Taliban talks, prompting anger and frustration in Kabul. The Taliban considers the Kabul government to be a Western puppet and has so far refused to directly negotiate with it.
U.S. troops have been in Afghanistan since an October 2001 invasion that brought down the Taliban government after it refused to hand over Al-Qaeda extremists, including Osama bin Laden, blamed for launching the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
With reporting by AP and Tolo News
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
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