Afghan peace: UN postpones Turkmen moot after Kabul snub

Afghan officials apprehensive of an agenda behind meeting.

ISLAMABAD:

A United Nations mission in Afghanistan has ‘put on hold’ a Turkmenistan conference, planned to encourage Afghan stakeholders to hold talks about the future of the war-torn country, owing to some Afghan reservations, a UN official told The Express Tribune.

The Afghan government, which had previously welcomed the Turkmenistan moot, came up with strong opposition when a peace conference in Paris in late December attracted the world’s attention.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) had floated the idea in December to invite the Taliban, the Hizb-e-Islami led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the political opposition of Afghanistan and the government-backed Afghan High Peace Council for their interaction to explore ways for peace and reconciliation.

The conference was scheduled to be held in two months.

“We only wanted to facilitate all Afghan warring sides to sit together

and discuss the future of Afghanistan after the 2014 Nato withdrawal. But President Hamid Karzai opposed the idea only to acquire more control,” a UN official told The Express Tribune.

The conference was also opposed by Afghan officials on the notion it may have a “possible covert and intelligence agenda behind it”.

The Hizb-e-Islami said it supports intra-Afghan dialogue but it is not possible in the presence of thousands of foreign invading troops.



Conditions

Furthermore, the Karzai government attached conditions to the Taliban-US dialogue process in Qatar, agreeing that more talks must be held between the Taliban and the High Peace Council – a proposal firmly rejected by the Taliban.

“We have now postponed the Turkmenistan conference but have not given up our efforts for peace,” the UN official, privy to the development, said in Islamabad.

Taliban have reiterated their stance of not talking to the Afghan government when they dismissed a call from the recent London summit. “We consider the Karzai government a puppet as it was installed and imposed by foreigners on the people of Afghanistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told The Express Tribune.

The UNAMA, a political mission, has a mandate to stress the importance of a comprehensive and inclusive, Afghan-led and Afghan-owned political process to support reconciliation for all those who ‘are prepared to reconcile’.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 8^th, 2013.