Afghan reconciliation: Afghan peace chief’s visit may herald breakthrough

Salahuddin Rabbani will discuss several proposals including release of Afghan Taliban in Pakistani custody.

ISLAMABAD:

As the international community accelerates its efforts to windup the Afghan reconciliation process before the withdrawal of US and Nato forces from the country, Afghan High Peace Council (AHPC) chief Salahuddin Rabbani will visit Islamabad this month to resume peace talks with Pakistani leaders, a foreign ministry source told i. 

“Significant positive developments are expected when leaders from Islamabad and Afghanistan will hold talks on new proposals to end the hostilities,” the official said.

One of the proposals pertains to the release of some Afghan Taliban leaders from Pakistani custody enabling them to enter the talks with the Council. A western diplomat in Islamabad recently quoted a senior Afghan diplomat in Islamabad as saying that Pakistan is willing to accept this demand by Kabul. However, the foreign ministry official was unaware of the claimed assurance by Pakistan to Afghanistan.

Some new proposals regarding Pakistan’s possible role in arranging reconciliation talks between AHPC and the Afghan Taliban will also come under discussion.

The key mandate of the Council is to reach out to the Taliban who have so far been refusing to enter a dialogue with the Karzai government, seeing it as an illegitimate regime in Kabul. However, AHPC is convinced that Islamabad can help bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Rabbani’s planned visit is the outcome of the trilateral meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari, his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai and British Prime Minister David Cameron held in New York last month at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, said the official.  Salahuddin Rabbani, who succeeded his father Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani as AHPC chairman April this year, also attended the trilateral meeting.

The Council, led by its chief, was earlier scheduled to visit Pakistan in August, following the trilateral meeting between Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, his British counterpart Cameron and President Karzai in Kabul in July.

The visit was postponed due to allegations of cross-border violations against each other by both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Both the New York and Kabul trilateral summits were hosted by the British premier. Following the Kabul meeting, the leaders of the three countries emphasised that Afghanistan required Pakistan’s help to successfully negotiate with the Taliban.

The Afghan media also claimed that PM Ashraf had assured Karzai and Cameron that Islamabad would facilitate negotiations with the Taliban.

In his address to the UN General Assembly last month, Karzai urged the UN to delist Taliban leaders from its register of terrorists and facilitate the peace process.  In particular he urged the 1988 Taliban’s Sanction Committee to take more active measures towards delisting Taliban as a step to facilitate direct negotiations.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 5^th, 2012.