Qatar peace process: Govt sidesteps Afghan plea for prisoners release

Says it will consider each step necessary that helps advance Doha talks.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan on Saturday refused to be drawn into a debate reignited by Afghan leaders that dozens of other Taliban prisoners should be freed in the interest of the reconciliation process, saying that Islamabad was already committed to facilitating the Doha peace talks.

“We will remain positive and will consider each step necessary that helps to advance the reconciliation process taking place in Doha,” said Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry, declining a specific comment over Taliban prisoners’ release issue said Saturday.

He further said that the Afghan government’s reasons for not taking part in the reconciliation process are best known to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, “we cannot comment over it.”

Kabul should not issue such statements at this point of time when a stalemate in peace talks between US officials and Taliban representatives in Doha is over after hectic efforts, he said.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Chaudhry went on to say that instead of replying to these statements Pakistan would extend its full support to an inclusive intra Afghan dialogue among all segments of society for the peace and security of Afghanistan.



Chaudhry made these comments in response to the statement from the Afghan foreign ministry.

The US wanted to resume the negotiations at the earliest to help finalise its strategy for the 2014 troop pullout from Afghanistan but Karzai was not showing up and now when Pakistan had announced it would support the peace efforts, he is trying to sabotage the talks, a senior Pakistani official claimed.

But this is not going to help him as the US is aware that Taliban show no interest in negotiating with the Karzai establishment,

Pakistan had earlier released 25 Taliban prisoners on Kabul’s request to initiate the Afghan reconciliation process, even then Karzai was blaming Pakistan for releasing the prisoners without consulting him directly and now once again he was raising the same issue, sources added.

There has been no progress in the peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban because the later believes that there is no use of talks with the administration of President Hamid Karzai which is actually being run by the US.

The official said that despite the harsh tone used by Afghan civil-military officials after recent border skirmishes between the two countries over the construction of a border gate in Mohmand Agency by Islamabad, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had assured US officials that Pakistan would take every possible step to help restore peace in Afghanistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2013.