ISLAMABAD:
No Afghan Taliban leader has so far approached a joint Afghan-Pakistan-US team for the “safe passage” to join the reconciliation process, raising doubts about the success of the trilateral mechanism, The Express Tribune has learnt.
In a seemingly angry reaction to the idea of “safe passage”, the Taliban had quickly rejected the trilateral forum as an attempt to “create schisms” in their ranks and to divert attention from “real issues”.
A Taliban spokesman said on Sunday the trilateral forum would not work because the Taliban have their own system of negotiations and even if someone approached the trilateral forum, it should be understood that they were not representing the Taliban.
On Sunday diplomats and officials, requesting anonymity, confirmed to The Express Tribune that no Taliban leader has contacted any member country of the trilateral forum over the past six months. They, however, expressed hope that the mechanism would yield tangible results, insisting the process was new and it might need some time before it achieved the set goals.
An official also referred to some complications in the “safe passage” mechanism like the inclusion of Taliban leaders in the UN sanction list — many of the Taliban’s top leadership still faces UN curbs and they cannot travel legally.
“So if a Taliban leader, who wants to join the peace process and his name is on the UN sanctions list, would be delisted first to give him travel and physical protection,” the official said raising concerns regarding the mechanism. Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yousaf termed the system “defective” and an attempt to create rifts within the militia.
“Anyone who approaches the so-called safe passage system will not be a representative of the Islamic Emirate,” he told The Express Tribune.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2012.
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US/NATO needs "safe passage" from Talibans not other way around.
Pakistan, Afghanistan, the U.S. should show seriousness and resolve this issue now. All the three states should stop killing more Afghans.Try now before it is too late. The ICG has shown concern at the possible civil war after 2014 withdrawal.
I do not completely comprehend the legal niceties of safe travel, but I think anybody who trusts, or places reliance on the US/NATO/ZION combo would have to be mentally challenged. The US in particular has to be the most brutal nation on earth in regard to how it treats prisoners. The US always comes up with a legal reason for not treating prisoners as human beings For example, if a prisoner-of-war belongs to a defined group, which the US has defined as not being the right type of prisoner, the poor devils are incarcerated in a torture camp such as GITMO in Cuba for an indefinite period. Now I do not personally know anybody who is Taliban, and I am prepared to accept the propaganda which describes Taliban as having traits which are not very pleasant, but I am reasonably certain that the Taliban resistance fighters have not killed as many people as the US did in Baghdad alone. I think the US will have to treat the Taliban somewhat better than they have so far, and this will include eating a little humble pie.
Both Pakistan and the United States have come across as major idiots in the whole issue by trying to negotiate with people who DON'T WANT to negotiate.
Artificial systems do not work. How the three countries ignore the real party and prefer to lure individuals?