Afghan President Hamid Karzai, long a staunch advocate of peace talks with Taliban, on Wednesday questioned whether the insurgent group was able to seek a political settlement and blamed Pakistan for fomenting instability, as Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said Pakistan was a part of the Afghan solution and any effort to address this issue without it would not be productive.
Karzai took a swipe at Pakistan, saying it was clear the Taliban leadership was not independent enough to make its own decisions about how it conducted the war, and suggesting talks with Islamabad instead. “During our three-year efforts for peace, the Taliban has martyred our religious ulema (leaders), tribal elders, women, children, old and young,” Karzai was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his office. “By killing (Burhanuddin) Rabbani, they showed they are not able to take decisions. Now, the question is (should we seek) peace with who, with which people?”
Hundreds of Rabbani’s supporters protested in Kabul on Tuesday against his killing, chanting “death to Pakistan, death to the Taliban” and demanding the government scrap plans to hold dialogue with the insurgents. Preliminary investigations into Rabbani’s killing, presented to Karzai by the country’s intelligence chiefs on Tuesday, said the attack was plotted outside Afghanistan and the Taliban’s powerful Quetta Shura may have been involved.
Karzai said Afghanistan’s efforts to improve ties with Pakistan had not been reciprocated. “Pakistan did nothing to destroy terrorist strongholds, allowing them to train in its territory,” he said. “And now, if the Taliban is being used… by the ISI, then Afghanistan has to talk with Pakistan and not the Taliban,” he added. Speaking at a dinner hosted by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Masud Kausar in his honour here, Prime Minister Gilani said Pakistan supported the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process.
However, such a process should not destabilise Pakistan, he said. Gilani said that Pakistan had its own interest in the region which it would protect at all costs.
Karzai says Pakistan fomenting instability
