Report: Afghanistan’s President Finally Comes Clean on Taliban, Islamabad

AhlulBayt News Agency - The National Security Council of Afghanistan, chaired by the country’s President Ashraf Mohammed Ghani, has recently launched a five-year strategy, aiming at fueling the fight against the anti-Afghan government armed groups.

The Afghan president has attended a meeting of the country’s National Security Council on April 26, elaborated on the new strategy of Afghanistan’s national unity government and also exposed his stances on peace process, security provision and battle against the rebel group Taliban.

The new Afghan government’s strategy against its armed opponents is seen as a major shift in Afghanistan’s approach. A couple of points stand out in the remarks of President Ghani in the National Security Council’s meeting in which the parliament and senate members were also present.

First point is that the Afghan president has emphasized that the government opposed Taliban and said that it would fight against the militant group. This Ghani’s stance is coming after the quartet peace negotiations, which included the US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan, were left unconcluded. The four-nation peace talks only gave Taliban group the opportunity to restore powers and re-organize its dispersed factions.

On the other side, some believe that the April 19 massive bombing that rocked Kabul was a kind of response by Taliban to a suggestion by Afghanistan’s government for holding peace talks with the militant group. Driven by the recent political as well as security developments in the country, President Ashraf Ghani has said that to provide the country with security and manage the affairs, more serious decisions needed to be made. Ghani asserted that last week the members of the senate and parliament had announced political support for the national unity government. “Now our united voice and our common goal is to put down the rebels and our security forces are ready for suppression of the opponents,” continued President Ghani.

However, Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi, the speaker for the Afghan parliament, had earlier said that he would support Afghan president’s war on Taliban provided that Ashraf Ghani soon presented his defense minister and the chief of country's National Security Council to allow the parliament to conduct their approval vote. Speaker Ibrahimi had said that both defense ministry and National Security Council were administered by the undersecretaries and that there was no justification for the government’s violation of the laws. Responding to the call of the parliament’s speaker, Ghani said on Tuesday that he soon would nominate the defense minister and the head of the country’s National Security Council.

The second point of Ghani’s remarks was his reference to the peace negotiations with Taliban. Despite the fact that the government has introduced new pathways for military confrontation of Taliban, the president has reiterated that “the negotiation doors are open to those factions of Taliban which want to halt violence and accept the country's constitution, but this opportunity is not permanent.”

Ashraf Ghani believed that “the genuine Taliban study at schools and those who massacre people should not identify themselves as Taliban.”

It is likely that Afghan government’s plan for military action against Taliban and the senate's backing for it would not leave any doors open for peace with the militant group.

Due to complexity of the conditions and the disaccords inside the unity government of Afghanistan, it is not possible to soon speculate correctly on whether such harmony between government and the legislative bodies of the country remains standing because delving into Afghanistan’s developments lays bare the fact that upon large-scale threats the political factions inside the government and parliament move close to each other in terms of positions but soon after threats disappear the coordination and unity also disappear. Therefore, more time is needed to see how the government and parliament are serious in their pledges for battling Taliban.

It appears that, due to drawing close to the expiration date of unity government agreements in the coming 4 to 5 months and not holding the meeting of the Loya Jirga- grand assembly in English- which decides on reforming the country's elections mechanism and also determines the political system of the country, Ashraf Ghani is concerned that after expiration of the deal he would face legitimacy crisis. Considering this challenge and his failure in peace negotiations with Taliban, President Ghani struggles to go close to the members of the parliament- or National Assembly formally- and portrait himself in line with those members who always thought the only way to deal with Taliban was to fight with it and not to negotiate with it.

The third significant point of Ashraf Ghani’s remarks is related to Pakistan’s policies.

Ghani has said that Afghanistan would not need Pakistan’s help to go forward with the peace negotiations, and that those who didn't join the peace process would soon beg for participation. “Pakistan vowed to fight those groups of Taliban which do not want to make peace, and also promised to leave behind the logic of good and bad terrorists, and Pakistan should act like a responsible government,” said President Ghani at the meeting.

It seems that the president has come up with the notion that Islamabad not only not serious about persuading Taliban to join peace negotiations but also its supports the militants and thus holds links to the recent series of assassinations and destabilizing incidents in an array of Afghanistan’s regions, including the capital Kabul.

 All these pushed Ghani to issue threats, asserting that should Afghanistan’s expectations are not met, Kabul would take serious steps with an international support and would pursue the criminals using international organizations.

With this address, Ghani implied that Pakistan was responsible for recent bombings. He added that Afghanistan’s enemies abuse the pure religious sentiments of young people in such terrorist groups as ISIS, Al-Qaeda and some Taliban’s splinter groups.

In a general view, it appears that the recent Taliban's terrorist blasts in Kabul have postponed Afghanistan’s government peace dialogue with the militant group for an uncertain time. But due to the approaches adopted by the former as well as new Afghan governments on the negotiations with the militant group, it is unlikely that in the future they would not re-activate peace talks with Taliban. This is understandable from Ghani’s address in the meeting of the National Assembly when he said that the negotiation doors were open to those Taliban factions which stopped fighting and acceded to the constitution.

Actually, President Ghani has seized the opportunity to lash out at Taliban and terrorism in a bid to save his face and win renewed legitimacy among people and the political officials. He, at the same time, warned Pakistan that he could sue it internationally should Islamabad failed to fulfill commitments. This is coming while in the past the same positions were taken by Afghanistan but failed to bear any profits for Kabul.




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