Peace talks

The Afghan president’s peace initiative has been criticised by different stakeholders, including Afghan political figures and some factions of the civil society. The critics have repeatedly raised concerns about the lack of transparency over the terms of negotiations and have warned against concluding a deal that would roll back some of the achievements that have been made in recent years in areas such as girls’ education, political participation and development.

There are some players in the international community who are already looking into direct engagement with the Taliban, bypassing Ghani’s administration. Russia and the US, for example, have recently held talks with the Taliban, without actively engaging the Afghan government.

Ghani tried hard to undermine the Moscow-sponsored conference on Afghanistan – initially scheduled for August – by refusing to participate; when Russia made clear its commitment to it, he asked for it to be postponed. In November, when the Russians pushed forward with the event, despite Ghani’s protestations, he was forced to send an unofficial representative.

A month earlier, the US strategically kept the Afghan government out of its meeting with the Taliban in Doha. US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad met representatives from the Taliban and discussed a number of issues, including the withdrawal of US troops.

By engaging directly with the Taliban, countries like the US and Russia are able to pursue their own geopolitical interests. The US is eager to stabilise Afghanistan and secure its continuing presence in the country to stave off Chinese, Iranian and Russian influence in the region. And Russia is seeking to reassert itself in Afghanistan after a 30-year absence to potentially curtail the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on its southern flank and to open another front in its soft confrontation with the US.

But by conducting direct talks with the Taliban, the two countries demonstrate that they perceive Ghani’s administration as weak and incapable of undertaking a viable peace process. Thus, the international community, led by the US and Russia, are effectively shunning the Afghan government and taking over negotiating peace on its behalf. This is not only bad news for Ghani himself, who is hoping to use the peace talks as leverage for his re-election, but also for the Afghan state in general.

External actors bypassing elected bodies in the country could be significantly damaging to Afghanistan’s political institutions. It would delegitimise the Afghan government and legitimise an armed group which has wreaked havoc in the country for decades.

In other words, if the peace process proceeds along the unilateral paths that the US and Russia have taken up, this would result in a weaker Afghan government (whether Ghani-led or not) which would undermine whatever peace agreement is eventually reached. Afghanistan needs a strong state to ensure stability and security, not a weak one.

The only way forward should be for the international community to channel any peace initiative through the Afghan government and institutions. The Afghan people must be part of the process for peace to truly be achieved. They must also be free to decide who gets to lead this effort on their behalf when the elections are held next April.

This article has been excerpted from: ‘The Afghan government should not be sidelined in peace talks’.

Courtesy: Aljazeera.com