{"id":3115,"date":"2018-07-14T06:17:44","date_gmt":"2018-07-14T06:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csrskabul.com\/en\/?p=3115"},"modified":"2018-07-16T06:20:02","modified_gmt":"2018-07-16T06:20:02","slug":"saudi-conference-and-the-future-of-peace-in-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csrsaf.org\/en\/?p=3115","title":{"rendered":"Saudi Conference and the Future of Peace in Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A two-day conference of Religious Scholars of Islamic World on Afghan War and Peace became convened as result of the initiative of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and collaboration of Saudi Arabia last week (10-11 July 2018).   <\/span><\/p>\n

More than 100 religious scholars from 37 countries, including Afghanistan, were participated in the 2-day international conference entitled \u201cPeace and Stability in Afghanistan\u201d where it issued a declaration after two days of discussions on the issue of Afghanistan. The declaration states: \u201cthe government of Afghanistan is Islamic, its people are Muslim and fight against Muslims is illicit in accordance with Text [Nas] of the Quran.\u201d A part of the declaration also emphasized on inter-Afghan negotiations between Taliban and the Afghan government and asked both sides to sit together and make peace for the sake of ending war and bloodshed in the country.      <\/span><\/p>\n

Notwithstanding, America is one of the sides involved in the Afghan war; however, the declaration of the conference did not point out the role of America in ending the war in Afghanistan and maintaining peace in the country.     <\/span><\/p>\n

On the other side, the Taliban, in a statement, has called holding such conferences as a proposal and program of American officials and has said that no famous and accepted religious scholar had participated in the conference, and the persons participated in the conference were \u201cofficial authorities\u201d of government.    <\/span><\/p>\n

The consequences of the conference and role and responsibility of the United States in ending the ongoing war and maintaining peace in Afghanistan are discussed in the Analysis.   <\/span><\/p>\n

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Peace Conference or a New Pressure Tool<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Peace and talks with Taliban is the issue that despite the government of Afghanistan, there are many other domestic and foreign independent institutions that struggle and make efforts for since last one decade. In the meantime, establishment of High Peace Council (HPC), Urumqi and Murree talks in China and Pakistan, \u201cQuadrilateral Peace Conferences\u201d process in Kabul and Islamabad and \u201cKabul Process\u201d two Conferences are among the main efforts made by the Afghan government for the purpose of initiation of peace talks with the Taliban; however, there is yet to be discernable.    <\/span><\/p>\n

Putting pressure on the Taliban through religious scholars is a new strategy of the Afghan government for making Taliban come to the negotiation table and thus tries to challenge the fight Taliban against the Afghan government from the religious perspective through creating religious oppositions to Taliban war against the government.       <\/span><\/p>\n

Holding a joint conference of Afghan, Pakistani and Indonesian religious scholars was among the efforts by government which required these scholars to declare the Afghan war as \u201cforbidden\u201d. After a lot of efforts, the conference became convened on May 11, 2018, in Indonesia and, unlike the expectations of the Afghan government; the conference did not issue an explicit fatwa on calling the Afghan war as illegitimate.         <\/span><\/p>\n

Three weeks after the Indonesia Conference, the Afghan government held another conference in Kabul on June 4, 2018, where more than 2000 Afghan religious scholars had participated in it and issued a fatwa on illegitimacy of the ongoing war in Afghanistan; however, the Taliban, in a statement of it, had called the fatwa of religious scholars in Kabul as an American proposal and process.    <\/span><\/p>\n

Following these efforts, a conference on Afghan war and peace was convened in the land of the Two Holy Mosques (Haramain Sharifain) last week where a large number of religious scholars from Islamic countries, more explicitly, called the ongoing war in Afghanistan as \u201cprohibited\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

At all, the Afghan government, by putting pressure on Taliban through religious scholars, tries to weaken the morale of their fighters from one hand, and from the other hand, it tries to bring the Taliban into peace negotiation table with the Afghan government seeking logic and language.        <\/span><\/p>\n

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Consequences and Achievements<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Whatsoever, the religious scholars\u2019 conference in Kabul had issued the same fatwa; however, the fatwa of International Conference of religious scholars from 37 Islamic countries in Jeddah and Makkah was the largest and most important fatwa against Taliban in last 17 years of war in Afghanistan. The important points of the fatwa are as following:     <\/span><\/p>\n