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Pakistan urges Taliban to stay engaged in Afghan peace process
Pakistan on Monday urged the Taliban to remain engaged in the Afghan peace process after the armed group said it would now shun summits about Afghanistan until all foreign forces had left.
The decision was taken after the United States said last week it would withdraw all troops by Sept. 11 this year, later than a May 1 deadline set out by the previous administration.
“They take their own decisions but we will do whatever we can to convince them that it is in their national interest to remain engaged,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said of the Taliban in an interview with Reuters in Abu Dhabi.
The refusal has thrown the peace process into disarray with Turkey scheduled to host a summit this Saturday, which diplomats had hoped would create new momentum towards a political settlement between the Taliban and Afghan government.
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 when they were ousted by U.S.-led forces, but they still control wide areas.
Qureshi said delays to the withdrawal were always a possibility due to logistics but that the Taliban had largely succeeded in their objective for foreign troops to withdraw and so should show flexibility towards the new Sept. 11 deadline.
“The troops will be out and a date has been given and the process starts on the 1st of May and goes on until the 11th of September so there is a definite time frame,” Qureshi said.
He also said he had no contact with the Taliban but that he believed the insurgent group would benefit by remaining engaged in the process, suggesting that they show patience and perseverance.
Pakistan, which helped facilitate U.S.-Taliban negotiations in Doha that resulted in the initial May 1 withdrawal deal, wields considerable influence with the Taliban.
The insurgents have sanctuaries in Pakistan, whose main military-run intelligence service gives them support, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. Pakistan denies the allegation.
Qureshi said he fears violence could escalate if the peace process remains deadlocked, plunging Afghanistan into civil war and leading to an exodus of Afghans.
Pakistan, which hosts close to 3 million Afghan refugees and economic migrants, has built 90% of a fence along its disputed 2,500 km (1,500 mile) border with Afghanistan and would hopefully be completed by September, he said.
He also said Pakistan was ready to engage in direct dialogue with arch-rival India once Jammu and Kashmir statehood was restored, which New Delhi in 2019 split into territories.
“We are two atomic powers that cannot, should not go into a direct conflict. It would be suicidal,” Qureshi said.
But he said he had no plans to meet with his Indian counterpart is also in the United Arab Emirates this week.
Top intelligence officers from India and Pakistan held secret talks in Dubai in January in a new effort to calm military tension over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, sources have told Reuters
Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev on Tuesday called on Central Asian nations to strengthen cooperation and coordination with regards to Afghanistan.
Speaking at the 13th Annual Meeting of Deputy Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Central Asian states, Kulubaev said that the establishment of peace and stability in Afghanistan plays an important role in ensuring regional security and prosperity.
He expressed support for the activities of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan and thanked the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva for her work within the framework of the UNAMA mandate, Kyrgyzstan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Roza Otunbayeva also attended the two-day meeting in Bishkek which ended on Tuesday.
The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says the construction of the Wakhan corridor road in Badakhshan has started and once complete will have a huge impact on Afghanistan’s economy.
The planned road will directly link Afghanistan with China through the narrow strip of land separating the two countries.
Mujahid said that the leadership of the IEA has taken important steps in the direction of developing the country’s economic relations and is trying to create different transit routes.
According to him, with the construction of this road, Afghanistan’s trade relations will expand.
“The area of the Wakhan road to the Chinese border is 60 km. Currently, the machinery of the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Public Works is there and they are being used,” he said.
Meanwhile, officials at the Chamber of Commerce and Investment have asked the IEA to complete the construction of the Wakhan road in Badakhshan as soon as possible so that Afghanistan no longer needs to depend on Pakistan’s transit routes for trade purposes.
“We request the elders of the Islamic Emirate to open the Wakhan port as soon as possible because our trade is 80 to 90 percent with China,” said a member of ACCI.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, Political Deputy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has said that the Afghan consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad are in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul, and the Afghan embassy in New Delhi will soon resume operations.
“Our consulates in Mumbai and Hyderabad are functioning and are in contact with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They provide consular services on a daily basis. Currently, our consuls in Mumbai and Hyderabad are present at the embassy in Delhi. I talked to them. They have reopened the embassy,” Stanikzai said in an interview with RTA that was broadcast on Tuesday night.
Stanikzai said that the Afghan embassy in India will resume its operations in the next two or three days.
Recently, the Afghan embassy in India announced its permanent closure, citing challenges from the Indian government.
Stanikzai in the interview also said that in his opinion, the Islamic Emirate has been recognized because it still has diplomatic relations with the countries it had in the past.
He said that there are currently about 20 embassies operating in Afghanistan.
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