In a stunning setback within 24 hours of what was touted as a breakthrough amid great fanfare, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has announced that his government will boycott the US-led peace talks with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.
Peeved over the US announcement that it would hold initial talks directly with the Taliban and bring in the Karzai Government
subsequently, Karzai also suspended security talks with Washington over the residual American presence after the withdrawal of forces next year.
Making it clear that any reconciliation talks must be “Afghan-led”, Karzai attacked the US for its “contradictions” and going back on “guarantees” pledged by it in respect of this whole process.
Karzai also took strong exception to the Taliban naming its newly-opened political office in Doha as the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, a title that the Islamist movement used during its five-year rule of Afghanistan until it was ousted by the US in 2001 following the 9/11 terror attacks.
“The way the Taliban office was opened in Qatar and the messages which were sent from it was in absolute contrast with all the guarantees that the United States of America had pledged,” said a statement from Karzai’s office in Kabul.
“Recent developments showed that there are foreign hands behind the opening of the Taliban office in Qatar. Unless the peace process is led by Afghans, the High Peace Council will not participate in the Qatar negotiations,” the statement said, referring to the organization he set up in 2010 during earlier peace efforts.
US President Barack Obama, currently visiting Europe, defended Washington’s push for a political reconciliation alongside the withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan, save for an ongoing training and advising presence
after 2014.
“We still believe that you’ve got to have a parallel track to at least look at the prospect of some sort of political reconciliation,” Obama told a news conference in Berlin, adding: “Whether that bears fruit, whether it actually happens, or whether, post-2014, there’s going to continue to be fighting, as there was before ISAF forces got into Afghanistan, that’s a question that only the Afghans can answer.”
Stating that Karzai himself recognizes the need for political reconciliation, Obama said: “The challenge is how do you get those things started while you’re also at war. And my hope is, and expectation is, is that despite those challenges, the process will proceed.”
He spoke of extensive conversations held with President Karzai both before and after the Taliban opened the office in Doha on Tuesday.
“As I think has been reported, there were some concerns about the manner in which the Taliban opened it, some of the language that they used,” Obama said.
Some areas of friction were anticipated at the outset, he said, adding: “That’s not surprising. As I said, they’ve been fighting for a very long time. There’s enormous mistrust. Not only have the Taliban and the Afghan government been fighting for a long time, they’re fighting as we speak.
“We’re in the middle of a war. And Afghans are still being killed and, by the way, members of the international forces there are still being killed.”
His apparent reference was to the death of four US soldiers who were killed in a Taliban attack at an Afghan air base, putting yet another question mark on the proposed talks.
A Taliban spokesman had claimed credit for launching the rocket attacks on Bagram airbase, the largest military base for US troops in Afghanistan.