Kabul sets ‘roadmap for peace’ with Taliban

Source:AFP Published: 2012-12-19 0:40:05

Kabul has laid out an ambitious and contentious five-step plan that could bring hard-line Taliban Islamists into government as efforts to broker peace accelerate ahead of the withdrawal of Western troops.

Kabul's "Peace Process Roadmap," obtained by AFP this week, outlines a vision in which by 2015, "Taliban, Hizb-e-Islami and other armed groups will have given up armed opposition."

They will have "transformed from military entities into political groups, and are actively participating in the country's political and constitutional process, including national elections."

Analysts say the roadmap paints an unlikely scenario of steady progress toward peace by 2015.

"This roadmap is too idealistic, we are still in the very first steps of a peace process," said Abdul Waheed Wafa, executive director of the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University.

"The Taliban simply don't want to talk to the government, because they think the government is not in a position to give them what they want. They've always asked for direct talks with other stakeholders such (as) the US."

The first step calls for a focus on "securing the collaboration of Pakistan" in the peace process.

This includes Islamabad releasing specific Taliban detainees held in its prisons in the hope that this could help bring the militants to the negotiating table.

The second step in Kabul's roadmap calls for initial moves towards formal direct negotiations with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia in the first half of next year, with the backing of the US and Pakistan.

To facilitate this, the plan calls for the US and the United Nations to support the dropping of sanctions against specific Taliban and other armed opposition leaders.

Step three of the roadmap, set for the second half of 2013, calls for agreements on a ceasefire and the transformation of the Taliban and other armed groups into political parties which could take part in elections.

It says the Taliban could participate "in the power structure of the state, to include non-elected positions at different levels."

The final steps in the plan include securing a peaceful end to the conflict during the first half of 2014 and moves to sustain the "long-term security and stability of Afghanistan and the region."

The principles governing the peace process state that it "must respect the Afghan constitution and must not jeopardise the rights and freedoms (of) the citizens of Afghanistan, both men and women."

The Taliban must also "cut ties with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and verifiably renounce violence."

AFP




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