VOA News Ayaz Gul July 19, 2017 ISLAMABAD — Prominent women rights defenders from Afghanistan and Pakistan have jointly called on their governments to push for the inclusion of women in any peace negotiations aimed at easing bilateral tensions and resolving an increasingly deadly Afghan conflict. The two countries share a nearly 2,600-kilometer border, and landlocked
Michael Hughes: Afghanistan’s High Peace Council (HPC) is tasked with trying to budge the country towards some kind of peace process with a headless Taliban movement while the body faces an existential struggle against Afghan lawmakers. Moreover, President Ashraf Ghani believes negotiations must start not with the Taliban but with the group’s benefactors, although that is
Press TV June 6, 2017 Afghanistan’s government is holding a multi-nation peace conference in the capital, Kabul, which remains on lockdown in the wake of a fatal Daesh bombing last week. The event, dubbed the Kabul Process, opened on Tuesday with the presence of senior diplomats from about two dozen countries and organizations, including Iran, India,
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty May 26, 2017 The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says it has received a petition from Afghans seeking justice for alleged victims of warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar, one of the main leaders of armed factions in the Afghan civil war in the 1990s, returned to Kabul this month as part
VOA News May 16, 2017 ISLAMABAD — The Taliban has categorically stated that seeking a peace deal with the current government in Afghanistan would be tantamount to a surrender to the “enemy” and contrary to Islamic faith. The insurgent announcement and reported U.S. plans of sending additional American troops to the war-torn country to help Afghan
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan May 11, 2017 Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami group said on May 11 that it will not hand over its weapons, despite pledging to do so as part of a peace deal signed with the government in September. The decision prompted a rebuke from President Ashraf Ghani’s office, with a
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan May 4, 2017 Notorious former Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has called on his Taliban “brothers” to end their insurgency and offered to mediate talks between the militant group and with the government. Hekmatyar’s remarks on May 4 followed his return to the capital, Kabul, months after he signed a peace deal
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty April 29, 2017 Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one Afghanistan’s most notorious warlords, has called on the Taliban to stop fighting government troops and begin peace talks. “I invite you to join the peace caravan and stop the pointless, meaningless and unholy war,” Hekmatyar, a former prime minister, told a gathering of Afghan politicians
RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan April 28, 2017 Notorious former Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar has held talks with government representatives in eastern Afghanistan after years outside the country, his first public meetings with officials from the Western-backed government since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. The meetings on April 28 came after Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e Islami militant group
Rahimgul Sarwan Noor Zahid VOA News April 19, 2017 KABUL AND WASHINGTON — Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday called the Islamic State terror group a “tool” of the United States, and dismissed criticism of Russia for its ties with Taliban and efforts to bring the militant group into peace talks. “After it [the U.S.]