Ghani’s rival endorses official team for Taliban talks

Taliban delegation arrives in Kabul to begin prisoner-swap process

ISLAMABAD:  

 

Despite bitter differences with President Ashraf Ghani that have hampered peace efforts and angered the United States, Afghanistan’s former chief executive Dr Abudullah Abdullah on Tuesday threw his weight behind the official delegation for talks with the Taliban.

The move appears to be the result of hectic efforts by the US to bring the bitter rivals – Ghani and Abdullah – on the same page ahead of the crucial intra-Afghan dialogue.

Last Friday, Ghani administration announced a 21-member “inclusive” team for the much talked about intra-Afghan dialogue. Taliban, however, rejected the official delegation, saying it didn’t represent all factions of Afghanistan.

With Abdullah publically endorsing the negotiating, the Taliban are likely to soften their stance.

“Though, there isn’t an acceptable solution found to resolve the political crisis stemming from the elections marred by rigging, my promise is not to undermine the peace process due to other issues,” Dr Abdullah said in a series of tweets.

Abdullah, who contested the victory of Ghani, formed a parallel government in Kabul, something that irked the US to the extent that it cut the $1 billion in aid and also decided to review cooperation with Afghanistan.

The threat apparently was the main reason to compel Abdullah to endorse the official delegation announced by the Ghani administration. Following Abdullah’s backing, the spokesperson of President Ghani said the Taliban had no reasons to delay the intra-Afghan dialogue.

“No more excuses, no more reasons to delay the talks if the Taliban are committed to peace and comply to that agreement they signed,” Seqiq Sediqqi said in a statement.

There was no immediate reaction from the US but European Union welcomed the rare consensus between the political rivals of Afghanistan. “The EU Delegation in agreement with the EU Heads of Mission based in Kabul welcome the agreement by political leaders on an inclusive negotiation team,” it said in a statement.

“This constitutes an important step towards starting intra-Afghan negotiations and solving the domestic political crisis. We offer our full support to the newly established team. We encourage all political leaders to promote the effective participation of women, youth and victims,” it added.

Prisoner swap

But before the crucial phase of intra-Afghan talks start, the two sides have to exchange prisoners as part of the deal signed between the US and Taliban on February 29 in Doha. The deal envisages release of 5,000 prisoners by the Afghan government in return for Taliban freeing 1,000 Afghan security personnel.

On Tuesday a three-member Taliban team arrived in Kabul to begin the prisoner exchange process. “Our three-member technical team will help the process of prisoners’ release by identification of the prisoners, (and) their transportation,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

“They are here now and we will begin our discussion; the prisoner release might go ahead in a few days if everything goes as planned,” a senior Afghan government official told Reuters.

Mujahid said the Taliban team expected practical work to start in the next few days on a deal with the US-backed government. The Taliban had planned to send a delegation of 10, Mujahid said, but it was reduced because of Afghanistan’s coronavirus outbreak.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo backed Afghan government’s negotiations team and termed Tuesday’s developments “good news”. “We’ve seen a (negotiating) team identified. Looks like it’s pretty inclusive, pretty broad. We’re happy about that,” Pompeo told a news conference in Washington.

“We’ve begun to see some work done on prisoner releases as well -- all elements that have to come together so we can get to the inter-Afghan negotiations, which ultimately will prove to be the only mechanism that has any hope of delivering peace and reconciliation to the people,” he said.

With input from Reuters