Qatar presses warring Afghans to involve ‘formal mediator’

ISLAMABAD: Qatar says it has formally proposed to warring sides in Afghanistan to agree to a third-party mediation for moving their stalled peace negotiations forward and reaching a power-sharing arrangement before US-led foreign troops complete their exit from the countryby a September 11 deadline.

Mutlaq bin Majed Al Qahtani, the special Qatari envoy for counterterrorism and mediation of conflict resolution, said his government shared the mediation proposal last week with representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban insurgency. He made the remarks during an international seminar this week in Qatar’s capital, Doha, international media reported.

“We do not think facilitation is enough. [Afghan negotiators] need formal mediation,” Qahtani said. The seminar’s organiser, the independent Doha-based Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, released video of his speech Thursday.

“The [two Afghan] parties have not yet finalised their agreement with respect to the mediation. One party needs two mediators while the other party needs one mediator,” the Qatari envoy said, without elaborating. “We expect the parties to come to us very, very soon about their final position. They are almost there.” Qahtani said the mediator’s opinions, decisions and proposals would not be binding on the Afghan parties, but he did not say who would conduct the proposed mediation.

The Qatari official stressed, however, it should be an “impartial mediator that understands the cultural sensitivity of the conflict to help the Afghan parties reach a peace settlement “in full conformity of the international law.”