ISLAMABAD:
Notwithstanding its ongoing peace negotiations with Afghan and US officials, the second biggest insurgent group in Afghanistan says it will not announce a truce unless its peace plan is accepted in toto.
Senior leaders of Hizb-e-Islami, the militant group led by former warlord Gulbudin Hekmatyar, met with President Hamid Karzai and US embassy officials in Kabul earlier this month.
“These are preliminary talks. And at this stage we have no plans to announce a ceasefire,” Dr Ghairat Baheer, who looks after the Hezb’s political affairs, told The Express Tribune in an interview.
Dr Baheer, who led the Hezb delegation in talks with President Karzai and US officials, said that their Kabul trip was sanctioned by Hekmatyar.
Baheer was arrested by Pakistani security officials from his residence in Islamabad in 2002 and was detained at the American detention centre at Bagram airbase for nearly four years.
About the Kabul talks, he said that he has observed a clear change in the American approach to the Afghan conflict. “Earlier they were reluctant to talk to armed opposition groups. But now they’ve become realistic – they want a political settlement of the 10-year-long war,” Baheer said.
Baheer had also met CIA chief General David Petraeus in Kabul two months ago.
The Hezb peace plan
The Hezb delegation shared a 16-point ‘comprehensive plan for resolving the Afghan problem’ with the US and Afghan officials which calls for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan.
“If the US sticks to its plan to pull out forces from Afghanistan by 2014, all other issues can be resolved through talks,” says the Pashto-language peace plan, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune.
“Before the withdrawal, they (foreign forces) should quit the main cities and populated areas and move to military bases,” it adds.
Baheer said that at times conflicting statements from the US State Department and the Pentagon create misunderstandings about their Afghan policy. “The Hizb delegation also raised this issue in talks with the US officials,” he added.
The Hezb peace plan envisages the Afghan security forces take over the security responsibilities and foreign troops have no right to carry out military operations and house-to-house searches anywhere in the country.
It also calls for handing over power to an interim government which is acceptable to all – but if the Afghans do not agree to a caretaker setup, then the incumbent government should hold fresh elections.
High Peace Council
The Afghan High Peace Council, meanwhile, is discussing the makeup of a delegation that will travel to Qatar to get a briefing on the Taliban plans to open a ‘liaison office’ in the Gulf state, The Express Tribune has learnt.
The peace council is in talks with the Afghan foreign ministry for the Qatar visit.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 9th, 2012.
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