Addressing a meeting here of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group on Afghanistan – which aims to devise a road map for peace and reconciliation in the strife-torn nation, a top Pakistani prime ministerial aide hoped that a roadmap for peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban would soon be finalised.
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“Some preliminary steps should be taken prior to starting peace because without that, progress towards peace is not feasible”, the Taliban said in a statement after an unofficial two-day meeting with people close to the Afghan government was held in Qatar’s capital Doha.
Nevertheless, the Afghan government has said it expects at least parts of the Taliban to agree to peace talks within six months, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah told Reuters in New Delhi last week.
He says representatives of the four countries, who met Saturday, stressed a political settlement to the war, now in its 15th year.
Meanwhile, the reports said that the Taliban would participate in the fourth CGQ meeting in Kabul as observer as their representatives would lack the power of decision making.
Yet, at the start of the quadrilateral meetings on Saturday, Pakistan’s Aziz said there should be no preconditions to negotiations. But the participants want some confidence building measures to encourage the Taliban to come to the negotiation table. Pakistan was one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban government before it was ousted by the U.S.-led coalition in 2001.
Pakistan hosted the first round of direct peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban group earlier in July past year.
Chinese Special Envoy for Afghanistan Deng Xijun, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard G. Olsan and Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry are leading their delegations. It should identify and stipulate various stages of the process while measuring the progress being made at each stage. “The only solution to the problem is to end the invasion of Afghanistan”.
Aziz said Pakistan fully shares Afghanistan’s concern that increasing violence is a challenge and its reduction should be an important objective of peace talks. “A clear and well defined road-map for peace talks between the government of Afghanistan and Taliban is of crucial importance”.
“This will contribute to imparting a momentum to the process offering incentive of political mainstreaming to the insurgent groups, and gradually shrinking the space for the irreconcilables”, he added.
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In January, the group made a raft of demands as a pre-condition to joining talks, including that it be removed from a United Nations blacklist, formal recognition of a political office for the group and the release of political prisoners. However, the peace talks were suspended due confirmation of Mullah Omar’s death that led to widening rift among the Taliban leadership.
