Peace is Not a ‘Personal Project’, Abdullah Says Urging Politicians to Collaborate

Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah says the Taliban have some shared and similar views regarding the peace process with the Afghan government and that Kabul should show its will and ability for a deal with the armed group.

Addressing a ceremony on Friday in the Presidential Palace to mark the 30th anniversary of Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Abdullah urged the Afghan politicians to do not consider the peace process as a personal issue and instead should help the government in reaching to an agreement with the Taliban.

“I expected the politicians to collaborate with each other on common points,” he said, adding that the politicians should compete through legitimate ways which he said is elections.

“They should know that peace is not our personal project, but peace is the desire of the people of Afghanistan,” he added.

On February, the Taliban held a two-days of talks with the Afghan politicians in Moscow, where the armed group’s delegation chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai said that the current constitution of Afghanistan is a major obstacle to peace and that it does not meet the demands of the people.  He asked for a new constitution for the war-torn country.

However, Second Vice President  Mohammad Sarwar Danish said that they did not expect anything else from the Taliban as he stressed that the armed group is dependent on outsiders and a copy of their policy.

Some participants of today’s gathering in ARG, meanwhile, warned that lack of consensus in the peace efforts would deepen the crisis in the country and that will lead into the loss of the achievements gained in the nearly two decades.   

“Those [politicians] who meet with the Taliban outside on behave of the people, would not achieve desirable results and its outcomes will be very bad,” said Fazl Hadi Muslimyar, the speaker of Upper House of the parliament.

He stressed that the government is representing the Afghan people and that the politicians should let the government take the peace talks’ initiative with the Taliban.