Kabul’s presence a must in peace talks: Khar

Pakistan will not support a US-driven initiative to start Afghan peace talks in Qatar until it is clear that the negotiations have the backing of the Kabul government, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said on Wednesday.
In an interview with the Guardian, Khar said the Afghan government was confused over the negotiations going on between the United States and the Taliban in Qatar.
She said even after a visit by Afghan president Hamid Karzai to Islamabad last week, it was unclear whether he really wanted his government to hold talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
“We are waiting for him to determine the course of action of his government and once that is done, we will want to be seen to be fully supporting it… The messages from Kabul are a bit confusing. At first they say they are supporting it but they say they are recalling their ambassador because they think they have not been taken into confidence,” Khar said.
“For us, the dangers of being supportive of something where there is not enough clarity on whether the Afghan government is fully behind it, fully owns it, fully drives it, are too high. The stakes are far too high,” she said.
“What we expect of Afghanistan and the Karzai government is that they share with the rest of the world and with us what it is they truly want to do. Yes, they want the path towards peace and reconciliation. They have already said that. But how do they plan to achieve it?”
Khar insisted that Pakistan would not actively hinder the effort to hold talks in Qatar, and denied reports that Islamabad had blocked some Taliban officials from flying to Doha to participate. However, in a reminder of the fragility of the Afghan-Pakistani relationship, the foreign minister again rejected Afghan pressure to allow Kabul officials have access to Taliban figures they believe to be in Pakistan, repeating longstanding Pakistani denials that Islamabad did not have any idea of the whereabouts of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.
“I am not an authority on where Mullah Omar is, but I do know that Pakistani authorities do not know where Mullah Omar is. I know that much,” she said, adding, “Pakistan’s view is that everything the Afghans ask us which is doable, which is realistic, which is based on facts, we will do… but it has to be based on facts.”
Khar is due to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in London this week but she said she had no power to seek an improvement in the relationship until Pakistan’s parliament had published the results of its own review.
Separately, in a speech at Chatham House, an international relations think tank in London, the foreign minister said Pakistan would give its full support to any clear effort by the Afghan government to achieve a political settlement with the Taliban but did want to lead a peace process that would impose a solution, Reuters reported.
On Pak-US relationship, Khar said Pakistan’s parliament was working on it and hoped that the outcome would be in the larger interest of Pakistan and its partners in war against terror.