KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – A US draft recently agreed with the Taliban and the Afghan government is the best chance to speed up captured peace talks between the country’s warring parties, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Thursday in said an interview.
After decades of war and conflict, the Afghans themselves are ‘in a hurry for peace’ and eager to heal their nation, Karzai told The Associated Press.
Frustrated by the escalating violence and the slow pace of negotiations that have been going on in Qatar since last year, Washington has put forward a proposal for peace on both sides in the protracted conflict, a copy that the AP obtained earlier this week.
Karzai, who is seen as a key player in the talks ahead, told the AP that the proposed US peace plan contains important provisions that could help bring peace to Afghanistan – with some revision by both sides.
Despite Karzai’s optimistic assessment, the Washington plan could face serious opposition from President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban. Ghani opposes the idea of an interim government as part of a transitional period and sees it as an attempt to reduce its power. Some of the Taliban practices, especially on the public role of women and demands for an Islamic system, may conflict with the ideas put forward by the United States.
Karzai, who served as Afghan president from 2001 to 2014, does not play a formal role in the negotiations, but is considered a key player. He is regularly consulted by Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and has been instrumental in bringing political opponents to the table.
Karzai said the U.S. proposal could keep a war-weary nation up for election; it protects the rights of women and minorities, provides a way to bring about constitutional reform and offers an interim government.
The US has already tried to convey the need for swift action to the negotiators.
In a letter to Ghani accompanying the proposal, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was urgent that Afghanistan’s warring parties find a peaceful end to a war that has lasted for nearly 20 years and cost the US nearly $ 1 trillion.
Karzai said Afghans themselves were “in a hurry for peace”.
“Peace is such a deep, deeply, deeply desired wish of the Afghan people,” Karzai said. “You can not imagine how urgent we are to achieve peace for ourselves and our young people.”
He expressed the hope that the US proposal could be a catalyst for both sides to make peace, perhaps even before May 1 – the deadline for a final withdrawal of US troops under an agreement between the US and the Taliban that ‘ was reached a year ago. For now, the talks in Qatar seem hopelessly caught up, while the negotiators are still debating the agenda. Karzai did not elaborate on his case for optimism.
Meanwhile, Washington is still reviewing the Taliban agreement with the Trump administration, signed on February 29, 2020. Blinken said in his letter to Ghani that a withdrawal of American troops by May 1 was still on the table.
Karzai said he was against the withdrawal of US and NATO troops on May 1 and warned that it would cause chaos. He said it was in the interests of both Washington and Kabul to have a responsible retirement.
“It is extremely important for the United States and its American allies and those who have been involved in Afghanistan for the past twenty years to be responsible, to do things that will bring lasting peace,” he said. “So, a responsible exit or a responsible stay in a peaceful Afghanistan are both issues that we need to consider very carefully.”
The Taliban has so far rejected the idea that international forces would remain in Afghanistan after May 1, but Karzai said they would be persuaded to accept an adapted US presence in a peaceful Afghanistan.
Karzai said the National Reconciliation Council of Afghanistan, of which he is a member, will meet on Sunday. The council, led by Abdullah Abdullah, will review the US proposal and respond to it with proposed revisions. The council’s leadership is the final arbiter on what the government will accept in a peace agreement.
Ghani has so far kept quiet about Blinken’s letter and the US proposal. Its first vice president, Amrullah Saleh, said earlier this week that the president was not moved by the strictly worded letter and that he did not abandon the demands that the Taliban join his government or that elections for a new government be held. does not become.
Ghani has steadfastly opposed an interim government.
Karzai said that if Ghani’s government could bring the warring factions together, we would support it, but he said he had not yet succeeded and warned of an opportunity for peace to hold on to power. .
A series of international rallies are set in motion for peace talks – Russia has invited Ghani, the Taliban, local players and the US to a meeting in Moscow next week.
Blinken suggested that the United Nations convene an international conference on Afghanistan within a few weeks, which would include the foreign ministers of Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan and the United States.
There will also be a conference in Turkey, where Blinken said he expects a peace deal to be finalized.
Karzai said a peaceful Afghanistan was important for all its neighbors, but especially Pakistan, where the Taliban leadership has its headquarters and with whom Afghanistan had a difficult relationship, even though Pakistan still has 1.5 million Afghan refugees. .