Deadlock: UAE puts Taliban leader under house arrest

Authorities in UAE refrain from offering any comment.

ISLAMABAD:

In yet another blow to outgoing Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s efforts to kick-start the peace process, a senior Taliban leader has been placed under house arrest by authorities in the United Arab Emirates.

According to Kabul-backed negotiators, the arrest comes days after the Taliban leader had launched his peace movement in Dubai.

“Agha Jan Mutasim, one of the key Taliban leaders who supported the Afghan peace initiative, was put under house arrest in the UAE, where he lived,” the Afghan High Peace Council, a body formed by Karzai to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, said on Thursday.

However, authorities in UAE have refrained from offering any comment on the detention of Mutasim, a former Taliban minister and close confidant of the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, earlier this month.

Last week, Mutasim’s family sources and friends confirmed that they have lost contact with him in Dubai. They were concerned that the UAE authorities might have detained and shifted Mutasim to an undisclosed location.

On Monday, the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed that Mutasim was missing in the United Arab Emirate.

The Afghan government says it has contacted authorities in UAE to seek Mutasim’s release, who Kabul considers as key to the fragile peace process at a time when Afghanistan needs a political solution ahead of the ISAF withdrawal.

The Karzai administration, in its final weeks of power, has been trying to rekindle dialogue with the Taliban but has failed to make any progress as the group insists that the government in Kabul has no authority to make decisions.

Taliban leaders have accused Karzai of being “insincere” in the negotiation process and subsequently blame him for the closure of their political office in Qatar last year.

A member of the peace council, Ismail Qasimyar, says that the council is hopeful that the UAE will extend help in the peace process with Mutasim’s release.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 18^th, 2014.