US forces will have to leave Afghanistan for peace: Hekmatyar

ISLAMABAD: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Ameer Sirajul Haq and Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan top leader Engineer Gulbaddin Hekmatyar have agreed that Afghanistan needs a true representative government of Afghan people to achieve the long desired peace and political stability in the war torn country.

Sirajul Haq on Saturday hosted a reception in honour of the Afghan leader at Mansoorah in Lahore. The US and other international powers should announce a Marshall Plan like aid-package to meet the challenge of reconstruction of Afghanistan, proposed the Afghan leader, who also served as prime minister of Afghanistan, visited the JI headquarters in Lahore along with a delegation to discuss the emerging political situation in his country and other matters of mutual interests.

Hikmatyar announced that delegations of Hizb-e-Islami would participate in Moscow conference on Afghanistan and also in the peace talks which are being hosted by Turkey next month. Around 95 percent Nato forces left the Afghanistan soil and the remaining five percent were ready to leave, he said, adding the US forces should also leave the country as soon as possible for the better cause to establish peace in the area.

The JI leadership backed the efforts of the Hizb-e-Islami and Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan for the establishment of peace in the country and expressed satisfaction that both sides (Hizb, Taliban) were on a same page regarding the future of Afghanistan.

Islam and Afghanistan were indispensable for each other, agreed the JI and Hizb.

He appreciated the efforts of the JI and people of Pakistan for the liberation of Afghan soil from foreign forces. He said people of Afghanistan wrote the history of resistance through their blood whenever any power attacked on their soil.

Siraj paid tribute to the determination and courage of the Afghan leadership and people for making a decades’ long struggle to vacate their land from foreign forces. He said the US forces must leave the Afghan soil, providing opportunity to the people of the country to decide for their future.

He asked India not to hatch conspiracies to destabilise the region instead of paying attention to address the issues of poverty and hunger of millions of Indians.