Delegation of Afghan Peace Council to arrive in Islamabad

Chairman of Afghan Peace Council Salahuddin Rabbani will arrive in Pakistan on Monday on a three-day-visit to hold talks with top leadership of Pakistan on Afghan reconciliation and peace process.

The delegation of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, led by Chairman Salahuddin Rabbani, will meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, and to hold talks with the foreign minister and Pakistan’s military.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry released a press release saying, “Rabbani was invited by Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to visit Pakistan to hold talks with the relevant authorities with regard to peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan.”

It is vital to mention here that likewise talks were derailed last year in September with the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former head of the High Peace Council, by a suicide bomber who purported to be a Taliban peace envoy. The Afghan government later named Rabbani’s son, Salahuddin, as the new chief peace envoy.

In an interview to foreign media, Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan Mohammad Sadiq suggested that the US efforts would be better directed at engaging insurgent groups rather than attempting to defeat them by launching military strikes against their leaders.

He stated, “Afghans are much more united in wanting to join the reconciliation process than they were two years ago. But still there are very important people who fought against the Taliban and are not still ready to talk and negotiate with the Taliban. And we are working with them.”

He further stated that Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf had appealed to all insurgent groups to engage in negotiations.

Replying to a query about what Pakistan would be willing to do to push the struggling reconciliation process forward, he said, “Expectations should be reasonable about what we can do because Pakistan and Taliban are not one party. We don’t control them, we don’t give them weapons, we do not give money to them.”

In his view, Afghanistan should strive to make sure any government that runs the country should include all ethnic groups and parties to preclude any repeat of past turmoil.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=34890

Posted by Web Desk on Nov 12 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.