{"id":2747,"date":"2017-11-25T05:45:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T05:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csrskabul.com\/en\/?p=2747"},"modified":"2017-11-26T05:49:29","modified_gmt":"2017-11-26T05:49:29","slug":"peace-process-negotiations-start-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/?p=2747","title":{"rendered":"The Peace Process: negotiations to start the negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Talks between the Afghan politicians and civil activists on the one side and the members of the Taliban\u2019s political office on the other side was to be held in early November in Dubai; however, the non-governmental organization of Afghanistan\u2019s Peace Studies, the organizer of the process, has said that such negotiations in Dubai are delayed for the time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Although the reasons behind the postponement of the negotiations are not clear yet, based on the statement of the organizer institution, this conference was not aimed at bringing the Afghan High Peace Council and the Taliban members around the one table.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Before this, some international organizations have facilitated the conventions of such gatherings in Japan, Germany, France, and some other countries, but none have produced any result.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>A glimpse into the NUG\u2019s peace policy<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Since the formation of the National Unity Government (NUG), ending the Afghan war, strengthening the Afghan forces, and achieving peace were the primary elements of the country\u2019s foreign policy. As an effort to achieve peace, the Afghan President began his travels from China, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan and, to attract Pakistan\u2019s attention to the peace process, gave many privileges to this country. Hence, Kabul mostly relied on Pakistan for its peace process. The Afghanistan-Pakistan-China trilateral meetings also commenced; its results being one of the Urumqi talks. In these talks efforts were made to include the Taliban in these talks because those who had participated in the Urumqi talks on behalf of the Taliban could not properly represent them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">In all the process of peace reconciliation with the Taliban, only the Murree talks were, somehow, a success for the NUG; however, due to the disclosure of the death of the Taliban leader Mula Mohammad Omar, this success did not take root. Later-on, the Quadrilateral Meetings between Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, and the US began; nevertheless, due to the Taliban\u2019s denial to participate in these talks, these meetings also failed to open the way for the face to face talks with the Taliban. The two primary reasons behind the failure of this process was inviting the Taliban through Pakistan instead of properly inviting them and the announcement of the policy of taking actions against the Taliban if they did not take part in these negotiations. Although Pakistan accepted this policy in the Quadrilateral Meetings, it did nothing later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>The peace process must not be the victim of incidents!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Unfortunately, the past history proves that whenever there was a slight progress in the peace process, it has immediately become the victim of bloody incidents. In nowhere around the world, wars have stopped during the peace process but rather after the peace agreements. If the Afghan Taliban stop their war against the Afghan government and join the peace process, it would mean that the Afghan government also has to stop their fight against the Taliban and let them do what they wish wherever they want.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">In the meanwhile, the Afghan Taliban must also realize the situation and, despite the Afghan government\u2019s war strategy and the new US policy towards South Asia and Afghanistan, prepare themselves to join the peace process. For instance, during the long-lasted war of Vietnam, the war was continuing between the US and Ho Chi Minh forces and simultaneously peace talks were also going on, and at the end, the US forces withdrew from Vietnam after the Paris peace agreement.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\"><strong>Is the peace process really the process of peace?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Last month (October), the US war in Afghanistan entered its 16<sup>th<\/sup> year. This war was not only the longest war in the US history but also it was an unprecedentedly long war on behalf of the foreigners in the past 300 years of the Afghan history.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Although forming the peace-maintenance commission, the Afghan government officially started its peace efforts in 2005, 12 years since then, still the Afghan government\u2019s progress in the peace process is equal to zero.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Still the Afghan government\u2019s greatest wish is to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table that is why we say that this is not a peace process but rather the Afghan government\u2019s effort to, somehow, bring the Taliban to the negotiation table.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">It is really surprising that instead of seeking results through undertaking proper policies and building the bridges of trust, the Afghan government has mainly focused on forcing the Taliban to join the peace process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">Even after Trumps current policy towards South Asia and Afghanistan, the Afghan government must keep the peace process running and should not merely focus on the US policy because the past experiences show that it is impossible to achieve peace only through the war. Therefore, at a time that the US hegemony is declining in the region and the world, the number of US troops in Afghanistan has decreased, and the Taliban are stronger than ever in areas of both diplomacy and the war, the Afghan government must not stop the peace process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #000000; font-size: 10pt;\">The End<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Talks between the Afghan politicians and civil activists on the one side and the members of the Taliban\u2019s political [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[27,28,29,31,32,22,557,2],"class_list":["post-2747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-peace","tag-afghanistan","tag-pakistan","tag-peace","tag-relations","tag-security","tag-slideshow","tag-the-peace-process-negotiations-to-start-the-negotiations","tag-ticker"],"views":14,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2749,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions\/2749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}