Elusive Afghan Peace: Ankara Trilateral Summit fails to address poltical solution

Afghan, Pakistani and Turkish leaders have concluded their annual trilateral summit in Ankara with the issuance of joint statement that mentioned the traditional words of cooperation but they have failed to come up with a plan how to play role to give a boost to the elusive peace process in Afghanistan.

Turkey, despite being an influential Islamic country among the comity of Muslim nations, is not in a strong position to play any role as it is part of the US-led NATO invading forces in Afghanistan. Taliban are unwilling to talk to the US-backed Karzai government and they also rule out the role of Pakistan in solution to the Afghan conflict unless they reach any agreement with the US, the major party to the conflict.

President Hamid Karzai, his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari, and Abdullah Gül, Turkish President ‘welcomed the progress achieved in the Istanbul Process for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan and reiterated their strong commitment to the Process as a regional political dialogue platform and the development of confidence building measures within its framework,’ the joint statement.

The trilateral forum had issued similar declarations in their previous six summits but has miserably failed to move forward to play any role in the Afghan reconciliation process, which is urgently required ahead of the endgame in Afghanistan.

Turkey had once been mentioned as a possible place for Taliban political office at a trilateral summit but then mystery shrouded over the issue and Taliban preferred Qatar, that showed that Taliban do not trust Turkey because being part of NATO, which Taliban consider as their enemy.

The Taliban attack on the Afghan spy chief in Kabul last week overshadowed the trilateral summit and that was mentioned in the joint statement.

The declaration said the summit recognized the common challenge posed by terrorism, extremism and narcotics trafficking as a major threat to regional peace, security and stability, and in this context, especially, denounced strongly the recent terrorist attacks on Asadullah Khalid, Director of National Security of Afghanistan.

The declaration surprisingly did not say a single word how to find out a political solution to the war in Afghanistan and the leaders just had a two-day sitting in Ankara and dispersed like their previous meetings. The leaders condemned extremism and terrorism but they should have the courage to ask the NATO forces to quit Afghanistan, the major cause of the war in the country. They should have also addressed the civilians killed in the NATO military operations both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as the American spy aircraft routinely rain missiles into Pakistan tribal regions.

Afghan President was more interested to point finger at Pakistan for the attack on his spy chief while ignoring the real objective to achieve peace to save the lives of Afghans who daily become victims in the war imposed by the aliens

“ A joint working group comprising relevant agencies of Afghanistan and Pakistan will address the recent attack on the National Security Director of Afghanistan,” the joint statement said, which shows that the Afghan delegation preferred this issue and the reconciliation process did not assume importance in the eye of President Karzai and his team.

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Posted by Tahir Khan on Dec 13 2012. Filed under Latest News, Opinion, Pakistan, World. 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.