- Pakistan will continue efforts for peace, stability in Afghanistan:Sartaj
Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz Monday said Pakistan is firmly committed to continue serious efforts for long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan.
He was inaugurating the first meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Committee on Afghan peace process here today. Representatives of Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States are participating in the meeting. Sartaj Aziz saidPakistan values its brotherly and neighbourly relations with Afghanistan.
He pointed out that the 5th Ministerial Conference of the Heart of Asia in Islamabad last month provided impetus to our quest for lasting peace in Afghanistan. The meeting on the sidelines of the Conference between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Ashraf Ghani as well as quadrilateral interaction among Pakistan, Afghanistan, US and Chinareflected important consensus on the way forward on Afghan peace and reconciliation process.
The advisor said on 27th of last month, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif visited Afghanistan and had useful interaction with the Afghan side for strengthening the security and counter-terrorism cooperation through intelligence sharing and facilitating the Afghan peace and reconciliation process.
He said today’s meeting of the Quadrilateral Groups has a great significance. He said the foremost task of the Group is to define the overall direction of the reconciliation process along with goals and targets to set with a view to creating conducive environment for holding direct talks between Afghan Government and Taliban groups.
The Advisor expressed the confidence that the meeting will be able to evolve an efficient procedural framework to provide the basis for smooth functioning of the group. In this regard, he said, it is important to underline that the ToRs have to be consistent with the objectives and mandate of the Group.
Sartaj Aziz emphasized that reconciliation through a politically negotiated settlement is an arduous and complex task.
He proposed four points to help guide the reconciliation process: Firstly: Creating conditions to incentivise the Taliban to move away from using violence to pursue political goals and come to the negotiating table; secondly Sequencing actions and measures appropriately to pave the way for direct talks with the Taliban; thirdlyUsing confidence-building measures to encourage Taliban groups to join the negotiating table and fourthly a realistic and flexible roadmap which broadly defines steps and phases ? but avoids unrealistic targets and deadlines ? is important for charting the course of action
The Advisor said while positive public messaging is important, keeping in view the sensitive nature of Group’s work, it should be their endeavor to keep the work of this group out of media glare, as much as possible.
He was confident that the meeting of the Quadrilateral group will have constructive and meaningful deliberations focusing on all relevant issues and charting the way forward keeping sight on their shared goal of achieving lasting peace inAfghanistan through a politically negotiated settlement.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States have begun talks today (Monday) aimed at restarting the Afghan peace process and eventually ending 14 years of bloodshed fighting the Taliban insurgents.
Officials from the four countries are meeting in Islamabad, the Foreign Office said, in what they hope will be a first step towards resuming stalled negotiations. The Taliban are not expected to attend the talks.
The militants have stepped up their violent campaign in the last year to oust the government in Kabul that is struggling after most foreign troops left at the end of 2014. High-profile suicide attacks in the capital and major territorial losses in Helmand province have underlined how far the country remains from peace without major Taliban factions on board.
A previous fledging peace process last year was stopped after the Taliban announced that its founder Mullah Omar had been dead for two years, throwing the militant group into disarray and factional infighting.
Kabul has been trying to limit expectations of a breakthrough at Islamabad talks, and has said the aim is to work out a road map for peace negotiations and a way of assessing if they remain on track.
Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai and Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry are attending the talks, Foreign Office sources told Reuters.
Besides an official from China, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Olson or the US ambassador would attend from the United States, a State Department official said.
“It’ll be an opportunity to further our partnership with Afghanistan, Pakistan and China in support of an Afghan-led, Afghan-owned reconciliation, which is what we’ve said all along we want to see,” US State Department spokesman John Kirby said.
“We’re obviously looking forward to trying to make some progress here on what has been a very difficult issue.”
Afghanistan last month turned to Pakistan for help in reviving the peace talks. The Taliban are split on whether to participate in any future talks. Some elements within the group have signalled they may be willing to send negotiators at some point, but other factions remain opposed to any form of negotiation with Kabul.
Afghanistan suffered one of its bloodiest years on record in 2015. The number of civilians killed is expected to have surpassed the record high of more than 3,180 Afghan civilians killed in 2014, the United Nations said, which brought the number killed since 2009 to more than 17,000.
