PRESIDENT, NOTORIOUS WARLORD SIGN HISTORIC PEACE AGREEMENT

KABUL Afghan President Ashraf Ghani signed a peace treaty with a notorious warlord on Thursday, pledging to lobby the U.S. and the United Nations to remove him and his party from terrorist blacklists.

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar signed the agreement via a video link into Kabul’s presidential palace.

Once international sanctions are lifted, Hekmatyar is expected to return to Afghanistan after 20 years in exile. He is believed to be in Pakistan.

A U.S. official said Washington would “seriously consider” any request from the Afghan government to lift sanctions on Hekmatyar and his party.

Hekmatyar’s party, Hezbi-Islami Gulbuddin, is listed by the UN as a foreign terrorist organization. Hekmatyar himself was designated by the U.S. as a “global terrorist” in 2003.

He is widely disliked by ordinary Afghans for his past support for al-Qaida and for carrying out sustained rocket attacks on Kabul during the 1990s civil war that are believed to have killed thousands of people.