For the first time since the US occupation of Afghanistan in 2001, ground has been paved for Taliban leaders to sit face-to-face with the Afghan government and to find a political solution to the problem. Pakistan has offered to host the important meeting that is likely to be held in the first week of March this year in Islamabad. Hopes for the possibility of this sought after dialogue process have been made possible courtesy efforts of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG). Earlier, the QCG, comprising representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US, had held a number of meetings to help pave a path towards the Afghan peace process with the Taliban. However, no breakthrough could be achieved so far. Still, there are limited expectations for this four-nation process. After the failure of the Murree talks in July last year due to the news of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar a couple of years before, now, a second round of meetings has been initiated to find a roadmap to bring the bloodshed to an end in Afghanistan. It is still unclear which faction of the Taliban is ready to become a part of the peace talks but it is hoped the main Taliban faction of Mullah Mansour, the Haqqani network and Hezb-i-Islami will participate. The recent visit of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Raheel Sharif to Qatar was part of the agenda to mediate between the Taliban and Afghan government. Pakistan and the Kabul government have urged all factions of the Afghan Taliban to join talks and find a political settlement to all issues.
It is too early to predict the outcome of the upcoming meeting. No high hopes can be attached to the upcoming talks due to the unreliability of the Taliban and their double standards. History shows that the Taliban are not trustworthy. In the past, they have used the tactics of engaging opponents in the dialogue process only to gain more time to become stronger and strengthen their ranks. Their spring offensive last year, even during the Murree talks, cost the lives of 11,000 Afghan civilians. It is a reality that the Taliban are not ready to abandon violence.
Amid hopes for a dialogue process, there are a number of challenges for the government of President Ashraf Ghani. It has been clear that the Afghanistan government simply does not have the strength and wherewithal to engage with the Taliban without the backing of foreign powers, or else this four-country process would not have been required. At the same time, the Taliban have intensified attacks and are making significant gains against the Afghan forces. The way to peace is difficult as there are many differences in the militants’ ranks, who are engaged in bloody infighting over leadership succession, which has made it difficult to identify which parts of the movement may be open to talks and which remain committed to the insurgency. However, after decades of infighting and invasions, the ground is being paved for the revival of a peace process in Afghanistan. This must be welcomed. It is hoped that positive developments will emerge from the upcoming talks. A political settlement in Afghanistan is in the interests of all stakeholder states and it will also make a positive impact on the whole world. The process, no matter how fraught or uncertain, must be persisted with for the sake of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the entire region. The only alternative is continuing war, which is not affordable anymore. Those militants who are ready to quit violence must be engaged in talks while those who are not ready to lay down their arms should be eliminated. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/editorial/25-Feb-2016/peace-prospects
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