Taliban-Kabul negotiations mired in sea of blood
Amid the escalating violence in Afghanistan, President
Ashraf Ghani on June 23 called on the Taliban to stop its violence and
killings, calling on the group to accept the demands of the government and the
people, commenting on the movement's recent attack on the Afghan Prosecutor's
Office, in which five employees were killed.
For his part, US Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad
condemned the attack, expressing his regret over the increasing attacks in the
country. However, the Taliban denied responsibility for the attack despite the
government's accusations.
Numbers
The statement from the Afghan presidency statement comes
after the Afghan National Security Council disclosed the death rates linked to
Taliban attacks in the country. Spokesman Javed Faisal said that the Taliban
had killed at least 291 members of the security forces in just one week in
mid-June, confirming that this was the most violent week since the beginning of
the conflict between the two parties 19 years ago, where the movement carried
out about 422 attacks in 32 states during that one week.
The Taliban denied the validity of these figures, while the
Afghan government asserted that the movement does not care about the ceasefire
agreement and the reduction of violence.
Negotiations
In the midst of this political debate between the two
parties, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen announced on Twitter on June 22 that
a meeting took place in Doha between Taliban leaders and UN Special
Representative Deborah Lyons regarding the necessary arrangements to conduct
negotiations between the movement and the government. There have been many
official statements from both parties regarding negotiations months after the
historic agreement between the United States and the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the Afghan government announced on June 14 that it
has agreed with the movement to hold the first round of talks in Qatar, which
is considered a major shift towards completing the terms of the US agreement in
terms of conducting negotiations.
Afghan presidency spokesman Sediq Sediqqi tweeted that the
government only agreed to hold the first meeting with the Taliban in Doha as a
preliminary step, adding that no agreement has been reached yet on the location
of the final talks between the two parties.
The negotiations were pending the reciprocal release of
prisoners, although TOLONews confirmed that the government has released more
than 3,000 Taliban detainees out of 5,000.
Qatar
Qatar played a major role in achieving the United States’ goals
in Afghanistan. The announced step by the Afghan presidency regarding the
completion of negotiations after months of successive strikes between the two
parties, especially from the Taliban, took place during a special visit from Mutlaq
bin Majed al-Qahtani, Special Envoy of the Qatari Foreign Minister for
Counterterrorism and Mediation of Conflict Resolution, to Afghanistan, during
which he met President Ghani and a number of government officials.
This visit also resulted in the release of a new batch of
detainees held by the Taliban, with pledges from both parties to continue
releasing prisoners in order to complete the negotiations as with Washington. TOLONews
reported that Ghani made assurances that his vision for lasting peace in
Afghanistan is linked to a ceasefire and a reduction in violence so that negotiations
can produce results.
Forming a new government
It is important to note that Ghani said he refuses to form a
new or interim government after an agreement with the Taliban, which he confirmed
was a strategic mistake previously made by former President Mohammed
Najibullah, who was supported by the Soviet Union at the time, when he
submitted his resignation in March 1992 to form an interim government, after
which the country witnessed a resounding collapse. Ghani has said he would not allow
this situation to repeat again.
It seems, however, that the talks will necessarily result in
the reshaping of a new government that combines Ghani and elements of the
Taliban, especially due to the latter’s strength on the ground. The president’s
statements, which he also addressed to NATO, are an attempt to block this
approach, as he evoked past disappointments that had led to the state slipping
to political Islamist groups that had fragmented the country and placed it
under the rule of foreign powers.
In a previous statement to the Reference, Ali Bakr, a
researcher of terrorist movements at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies, said that the Taliban seeks to take power unilaterally after
the departure of the United States and will not allow the government to have more
influence, while the government will work to win any authoritarian changes, although
its weakness will prevent it from acquiring much.
US intentions towards political Islamist currents
It is clear that President Ghani is still defending his
desire to continue ruling after his failure to use the release of detainees for
political maneuvering to continue in power and enter negotiations with some
gains, but US intervention and Washington’s threat to cut aid to his country
precipitated his release of detainees without succeeding in obstructing or
exploiting this step.
With this, Ghani and his government will enter negotiations
fulfilling all the conditions set by the extremist movement with Washington
when he was excluded as a political party from the equation of Afghanistan’s
future, indicating that the upcoming negotiations will not be easy. In the end,
it is expected that Washington’s desires will be achieved.
This result shows that the negotiations are mainly linked to
Washington starting to abandon its project in Afghanistan, which points to bad prospects
for the Afghan situation during the next stage. Whatever the situation, the
United States, which is likely to exit the country, will profit only after
setting up an ally who will secure its interests in the region, which exposes
the true intentions of the American project toward terrorist groups and clearly
reveals Qatar's executive role in this equation.
