San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Peace talks seek to end decades of ruinous war
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Afghanistan’s warring sides started negotiations for the first time, bringing together the Taliban and delegates appointed by the Afghan government Saturday for historic meetings aimed at ending decades of war.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the opening ceremony in Qatar, where the meetings are taking place and where the Taliban maintain a political office. The start of negotiations was the latest in a flurry of diplomatic activity by the Trump administration ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.
“Each of you carry a great responsibility,” Pompeo told the participants. “You have an opportunity to overcome your divisions.”
While Saturday’s opening was about ceremony, the hard negotiations will be held behind closed doors and over a number of sessions. But following a meeting with the Taliban on Saturday in Doha, Washington’s peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said the U.S. and every Afghan would like to see a deal “sooner rather than later.”
The sides will be tackling tough issues in the negotiations, which will include the terms of a permanent ceasefire, the rights of women and minorities, and the disarming of tens of thousands of Taliban fighters and militias loyal to warlords, some of them aligned with the government.
Khalilzad said a quick, permanent ceasefire is unlikely, but held out hope for a gradual reduction in violence until both sides are ready to end their fighting. Mistrust runs deep on both sides, he said.
The Afghan negotiation teams are also expected to discuss constitutional changes and power sharing during their talks. Even seemingly mundane issues like the flag and the name of the country — the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan or the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban’s administration was known when it ruled — could find their way onto the negotiation table and roil tempers. Among the governmentappointed negotiators are four women, who have vowed to preserve women’s rights in any powersharing deal with the hardline Taliban. This includes the right to work, education and participation in political life, all denied to women when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan for five years.
The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.led coalition for harboring Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America.
No women are on the Taliban’s negotiation team, led by their chief justice Abdul Hakim. The insurgent movement has said it accepted a woman’s right to work, go to school and participate in politics but would not accept a woman as president or chief justice.
Deeply conservative members of the governmentappointed High Council for National Reconciliation, which is overseeing the talks, also hold that women can’t serve in either post.
The Taliban’s deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, said the Taliban envisioned an Islamic system that embraces all Afghans, without elaborating. He also urged patience as the negotiations proceeded, urging both sides to stick with the talks even in the face of problems.
“The negotiation process may have problems, but the request is that the negotiations move forward with a lot of patience, with a lot of attention, and it should be continued with such kind of attention,” he said.
Abdullah Abdullah, who heads Kabul’s High Council for National Reconciliation, said in his remarks that the sides do not need to agree on every detail, but should announce a humanitarian ceasefire.