[The result, or at least the vibe, was unexpectedly positive. Several participants said there was not much detailed discussion, but they described a willingness by Taliban representatives to explore issues of importance to Afghans and to keep open a dialogue that could lead to the end of the conflict.]
By
Pamela Constable
 |
|
Afghan
and Pakistani refugee girls play on the outskirts of Islamabad. Peace talks
between
the Taliban and Afghan leaders were called off Friday.
(Farooq
Naeem/AFP/Getty Images)
|
ISTANBUL
— The sudden cancellation of
eagerly awaited talks between Taliban officials and Afghan leaders, planned to
begin last Friday in Qatar, seemed a stunning reversal in slow-going efforts to
bring a peaceful negotiated end to the 17-year Afghan war.
As it turned out, the moment did not go
entirely to waste.
On Saturday, about 20 Afghan emigres from
Europe and the United States, including three women, privately met Taliban
representatives in Doha, the Qatari capital. They said they spoke for more than
six hours with the group’s chief negotiator, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, and
a dozen other insurgent representatives.
The result, or at least the vibe, was
unexpectedly positive. Several participants said there was not much detailed
discussion, but they described a willingness by Taliban representatives to explore
issues of importance to Afghans and to keep open a dialogue that could lead to
the end of the conflict.
“This was the cracking open of the door,”
said Masuda Sultan, 46, an Afghan American activist and board member of the
nonprofit organization Women for Afghan Women, which has offices in Washington
and Kabul. She said her organization had been excluded from the Afghan
delegation to the formal talks, but she flew to Doha anyway.
“The Taliban were warm and cordial,” Sultan
said Sunday by phone from Doha. “They said they wanted peace and that they were
disappointed the talks had fallen apart.”
The formal meeting was canceled after Afghan,
Taliban and Qatari organizers could not agree on the size and membership of the
Kabul delegation.
Sultan said the Islamist militia leaders did
not lay out their specific views on women’s rights, other than to say they
would be “respected within Islam” — a vague position the extremist group has
previously stated. Many Afghan women have expressed concern the Taliban would
restrict women’s rights if they returned to power.
“I know some people will say we were naive”
to meet with the insurgents after formal talks were called off, Sultan said.
“But they asked for our advice, they said they had made some mistakes and they
said they were serious about wanting peace. They spoke with us for more than
six hours. If we don’t engage with them in dialogue, we will just be continuing
the same war that has gone on for 17 years.”
Another female participant was Khatol Momand,
an Afghan-born teacher who lives in Norway. “Our presence here says a lot,” she
said before the Saturday meeting. “We are told the Taliban have changed, that
they don’t just want women to be a symbolic presence, they want them to play a
role in society. But it is still too early to judge.”
Several of the men who came from Western
countries for the canceled meeting and met the Taliban are members of an
international movement for Afghan peace. They blamed the Afghan government for
derailing the talks, saying it had given too large a role to former militia
leaders who had fought the Taliban.
“For peace to take root in Afghanistan, the
traditional reliance on warlords to form governing coalitions and ensure
stability must end,” said Daud Azimi, 37, a technology consultant in Germany.
“Afghanistan’s silent majority — refugees, those who live abroad, those with no
money, no weapons, no government officials in their back pockets — must be
given a voice.”
In Kabul on Sunday, a spokesman for President
Ashraf Ghani said the government had no comment on the private talks, noting
only that the participants “went in their own capacity, and they are entitled
to do their own thing.”
The spokesman, Samimullah Arif, said the
government hopes to revive the canceled talks but wants to move them to
Uzbekistan because the Doha organizers did not respect the “sovereignty” of the
Afghan delegate list. The Taliban maintains a political office in Doha, and
peace talks have been held there between Taliban representatives and U.S.
officials.
Friday’s talks were called off after Taliban
officials objected to the unwieldy size of the 250-member Kabul delegation,
which they ridiculed as an Afghan wedding party, and to the dominant role the
Afghan government played in organizing it. The Taliban does not recognize the
Ghani government, and its leaders insisted that any officials in the group
speak only for themselves.
“They had asked people to come as
individuals, and they felt that was not respected,” said Sultan Barakat, a
scholar at the Doha Institute who organized the aborted talks. “The Taliban
were receptive, but they had red lines and psychological limitations. They are
in a war, and there is a lot at risk for them, too.”
His institute invited the Western-based
Afghans to come to Doha.
It was not clear when talks between Taliban
and U.S. officials would resume. The last round ended in February with no
concrete progress. The Taliban later agreed to a preliminary meeting with a
cross-section of Afghan leaders, but it also launched its annual spring
offensive, with a rash of attacks across the country.
One problem hindering the peace process — the
interference of electoral politics — was partially resolved Sunday when
Afghanistan’s Supreme Court legally extended Ghani’s presidency until
September. Presidential elections are scheduled to be held then, after being
postponed twice. The ruling is likely to ease the competition among potential
candidates that roiled efforts to choose delegates to come to Doha.
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