Ghani Plans to Form State Ministry for Reconciliation Affairs

President Ashraf Ghani is expected to form a new ministry for peace and reconciliation after more than 3,000 participants of a consultative Jirga on peace recommended the closure of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council.

Sources in the government say that President Ghani wants to appoint his Chief of Staff Abdul Salaam Rahimi in the position.

Mohiuddin Munsif, an Afghan senator believes that the new move is wastage of government budget and the government should appoint trusted figures to the High Peace Council.

The presidential palace denied making a comment about the decision.

However, sources in the High Peace Council and Afghanistan’s Chief Executive Office who wish not to be named said that the decision is not final yet.

If the new plan is approved the fate of High Peace Council will remain unknown.

Ataulrahman Saleem, a senior official at the HPC argues that the Council had some achievements despite failures.

Meanwhile, sources close to the Taliban says that a delegation of the Taliban militant group has traveled to Beijing to hold talks with Chinese officials ahead of their seventh round of talks with the United States in Qatar.

Taliban visit from China comes after a scheduled intra-Afghan meeting in Norway was canceled due to the Taliban’s disagreement over the presence of Amrullah Saleh and Salaam Rahimi.

“Norwegian officials told Taliban that the Afghan government officials will attend at the meeting; therefore, Taliban apologized from Norwegian officials for being unable to attend at the meeting and instead they traveled to China,” said Waheed Muzhda, a pro-Taliban political analyst.

Ghulam Farooq Majroh, an Afghan lawmaker says that without flexibility the Afghan peace process will not have a result.

This comes just days ahead of the Taliban’s latest round of talks with the US in Qatar that will be followed by a German-Qatar hosted intra-Afghan dialogue.