China, US meeting seeks end to Afghan war

Delegates from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States held talks on Monday to try to resurrect efforts to end almost 15 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan, even as fighting with Taliban insurgents intensifies.

The delegations were led by Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, Pakistan Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard G. Olsan and Chinese Special Envoy for Afghanistan Deng Xijun, respectively.

But a splinter group headed by Mullah Mohammad Rasool Akhund, which rejects Mansour’s authority, has dismissed any talks under the mediation of the United States or China or of Pakistan, which observers say has significant sway among Taliban commanders holed up near its border with Afghanistan.

“In our view, assigning specific tasks amongst us in accordance with the principle of shared responsibility will be crucial for getting the desired outcome”, Aziz said. The initiative, officially called Murree Peace Process, however, fell apart after news emerged that Taliban’s long-time leader Mullah Omar had died two years ago.

Barnett Rubin, a long-time adviser to the USA government on Afghanistan and current senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation with New York University, probably best summed it up in an email interview on the eve of the talks, saying: “Both the Afghan government and the official Taliban leadership in Pakistan are committed to continuing the war unless the other side agrees to their framework for negotiation”.

Terms for the upcoming meeting had been finalized last month during a visit to Kabul by Pakistan’s powerful army chief of staff Gen. Raheel Sharif, Faisal said.

Top officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan, China and the United States are meeting in Islamabad today to finalise a roadmap for resurrecting a stalled peace process in Afghanistan.

The Taliban are not expected to attend the talks, but there are expectations that an agreement between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the eradication of Taliban boltholes in Pakistan, will go a long way toward hampering Taliban attacks in Afghanistan.

But he cautioned: “The Taliban have not yet showed their willingness to talk”. The Afghan government would have to come up with an offer as to how many seats in the parliament as well as in the cabinet could be offered to the Taliban.

Pakistan attaches great importance to neighboring countries and feels duty-bound to ensure peace in the region, he said, adding that the main objective of the meeting is to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

This power struggle within the Taliban has raised questions about who would represent the armed group if and when the talks with the Afghan government restart. The Taliban say they captured a government compound in the strategic Sangin district over the weekend, claims denied by Afghan officials. The U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation have 13,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, mostly in a training capacity, They include 9,800 Americans. “They want to sort out their internal differences first”.

“In the current situation it is not possible to bring peace”, he said.