Four-party Talks on Afghan Peace Process Set for Monday

Pakistan is set to host four-way talks Monday on reviving the Afghan peace process. The talks will include Afghanistan, China and the United States. Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmad Shekib Mostaghni said Saturday that the representatives meeting in Islamabad would discuss a “road map for peace talks.” The discussions were agreed to during a visit to Kabul by Pakistan's army chief, General Raheel Sharif, in December. Pakistan is believed to have influence over the Taliban, but relations with Afghanistan have been tense in recent months. The two countries have long accused each other of backing the Taliban and other insurgents operating along their porous border. Taliban leaders are widely believed to be based in Pakistani cities near the Afghan border, including Quetta and Peshawar. Some regional analysts say Pakistan could be important in the Afghan peace process. “Pakistan has a vital role in these talks and it must play its role now, as the Afghan government doesn’t have the capacity to bring the Afghan Taliban to the table for talks,” Pakistan-based defense analyst Saad M. Khan told VOA Deewa radio. Monday's talks will not include the Taliban, but the Reuters news agency reported that some factions within the Afghan Taliban were considering taking part in the peace process. On hold since July Talks with the Taliban have been on hold since July, when they collapsed after just one meeting following Afghanistan's announcement that longtime Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had been dead for more than two years. The Taliban called off its participation and a second meeting was canceled. A subsequent power struggle within the Taliban has raised questions about who would represent the insurgents if the talks with Kabul were revived. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani took part in a regional “Heart of Asia” conference last month in Islamabad. The conference called for the resumption of Afghan-Taliban peace negotiations. Ghani was given a warm welcome at the meeting, which U.S. and Chinese representatives also attended. Analysts have cautioned that despite the rapprochement between Kabul and Islamabad, any substantive peace talks are still months off. Taliban demands have consistently focused on an end to the international military presence in the country. The U.S. and NATO have 13,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, mostly in a training capacity. They include 9,800 Americans. Afghan civil society groups on Saturday called for an inclusive peace dialogue, saying that women's and human rights should be central considerations. Few previous meetings between the two sides have included women or civil society activists. Sonya Aslami of the Afghan People's Dialogue on Peace Initiative said women's participation in the peace process was essential to its success. “The government should consider it as a priority,” she said. The umbrella group said five years of peace negotiations had failed “due to a lack of clear objectives, a lack of inclusivity in peace planning and insufficient consideration of people's demands.”
Source: http://www.voanews.com/content/four-party-talks-afghan-peace-process-set-monday/3138322.html