ISLAMABAD: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani unveiled his much-anticipated peace plan on February 28 in his address to delegates from over 25 countries in Kabul, reiterating his dialogue offer to the Taliban and to recognise them as a political party. But the beleaguered leader did not address the Taliban’s repeated calls for an end to the US-led foreign invasion, which they insist is the only reason behind their armed resistance in the country.
Foreign delegates threw weight behind President Ghani’s dialogue offer at the second meeting of the ‘Kabul Process’ that was launched last year. The first meeting in June last year was held after a massive truck bomb blast killed and injured hundreds of people.
Pakistani officials have also backed the peace plan, an official in the Pakistani high level delegation told Daily Times on return to the country on Thursday.
In his offer, Ghani also said that he was ready to allow the Taliban open an office in Afghanistan, discuss release of Taliban prisoners, get removed names of their leaders from the UN sanction list, agree on a ceasefire, and even introduce amendments in the constitution.
The Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid avoided comments when a query was posted on his Whatsapp number and said that he was ‘trying to get response from the political representatives’.
But Taliban officials, privy to political envoys’ activities, told Daily Times that the Taliban political representatives had yet to pay attention to Ghani’s speech. They insisted that their objective was to end the foreign invasion and enforce Islamic Sharia, and Ghani had not said anything about either of the two issues. They, however, did not rule out a formal response that could be issued later.
Meanwhile, an a letter addressed to Dr. Barnett Rubin, former senior adviser to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the U.S. Department of State, the Taliban had rejected the Kabul Process.
“The Kabul Process and other such efforts seek surrender from the Islamic Emirate at a time when the Islamic Emirate is without a doubt a force that has defeated an international arrogant power like America with all its allies and tools at its disposal. So do you believe such a proposal is logical?” the Taliban wrote to Mr Rubin in response to his letter published in the New Yorker this week.
Mr Rubin was critical of the Taliban’s quest for direct talks with the US. He advised the Taliban, “Your dialogue with the U.S. government cannot replace dialogue with that government and the millions of other Afghans who fear your attacks and your return.”
The Taliban responded, “Our country has been occupied which has led to an American style supposed [sic] Afghan government being imposed upon us. And your view that we talk to them and accept their legitimacy is the same formula [sic] adopted by America to win the war.”
The Taliban reply reflected their longstanding stance not to talk to the regime in Kabul and instead sit face-to-face with the Americans. The Taliban leaders repeated the same in an open letter to the American people, extending an invitation to the US leader to visit them in Qatar.
The Taliban’s approach is not new, they had also declined similar offers by Hamid Karzai despite his repeated calls and efforts even to use the influence of former Taliban leaders, including Mullah Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, for contacts with Mullah Omar and senior Taliban leaders.
When Pakistan had released nearly 50 senior Taliban leaders in 2013-14 on Karzai’s request, none of them joined the peace process.
Political observers believe that the peace process will face deadlock until both the Taliban and the US show flexibility in their current stance on the political process. The US has until now disagreed with the Taliban’s calls for direct talks, and has wanted the Taliban to join the intra-Afghan dialogue. The US does not want to annoy the Kabul administration at a time when president Ghani also faces a lot of political challenges even from his coalition partners. Ghani’s first vice-president Abdul Rashid Dostam is not being allowed to return home from Turkey. The Jamiat-e-Islami strong-man, Atta Muhammad Noor, the Balkh governor, has also rejected Ghani’s order to resign.
Afghanistan currently faces a complex situation when the fighting season is about to begin amid US troops surge and the Taliban expanded control.
The Taliban routinely launch their ‘Spring Offensive’ in late April and it is believed fighting could get intense this year as the Taliban have succeeded to keep control of all areas they secured last summer up till now.
A BBC survey last month revealed that Taliban were active in nearly 70 percent of Afghan territory, while the US watchdog Sigar said in its latest quarterly report that the Taliban controlled or influenced 54 of the country’s 207 districts.
Published in Daily Times, March 2nd 2018.
