Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR) said Thursday in an event introducing “Afghan People’s Peace Perception Survey”, conducted by the Institute of War and Peace Studies (IWPS) that the government negotiators representing the Afghan nation will lay out the people’s demands in the peace talks.
It comes a day after the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan in a telephone conversation invited the peace chief Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to discuss ways for clearing the path to intra-Afghan dialogue. The chairman of peace council accepted the invitation.
Rahmatullah Nabil, the former head of Afghan intelligence agency—the National Directorate of Security (NDS) who also attended the event said peace in Afghanistan has turned into a proxy peace. Since the start of efforts for the direct talks and sitting at a negotiating table with the Taliban, Afghans have played only a marginal role in the process of peace talks; Pakistan, however, has been a key player in the process, he added.
The proxy peace can replace proxy war in the country, said Mr. Nabil, but wouldn’t bring a lasting peace to Afghanistan.
Political analysts, on the other hand, believe that Pakistan seeks to have an upper hand in the Afghan peace talks.
Speaking to TKG, Ali Fayez, an Afghan political affairs expert said that Pakistan has made some efforts for advancing peace talks under a severe international pressure, but is needed for the Afghan government to realistically take action and impose pressures on Pakistan to help it shut down terrorism and insurgency in Afghanistan.
It comes as the political office of the Taliban has reportedly has set a team of “decision-making powers” for the talks with the Afghan government negotiators, according to its Doha-based leadership.
As per reports, leader of the group Maulavi Hibatullah Akhundzada has hand-picked the 20-member team, 13 of whom come from the Taliban’s leadership council — around half of the council’s total members.
Follow TKG on Twitter & Facebook
