The Afghan government is expected to finalize a peace deal with a notorious militant insurgent group within days, marking a breakthrough in attempts to end the 15-year war, an official and a representative of the group said yesterday.
Afghan High Peace Council deputy head Ataul Rahman Saleem told reporters that the deal with the armed wing of Hezb-i-Islami could be completed today, after two years of negotiations.
Hezb-i-Islami senior representative Amin Karim also said he expected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to approve the final version of the agreement today.
Photo: AP
Such a deal would mark a much-needed success for Ghani in forging peace with insurgent groups fighting to overthrow the Kabul administration.
His attempts to open a dialogue with the Taliban, mainly with overtures to the Pakistani government, which is believed to support it, have failed.
Hezb-i-Islami is led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, best known for killing thousands of people in Kabul during the 1992-1996 civil war.
He is believed to be in Pakistan, although Karim has said he is in an unspecified location in Afghanistan. Under the terms of the 25-point agreement, a draft of which has been seen by reporters, he could soon return to Kabul to sign a formal peace deal and take up residence.
Hekmatyar, in his late 60s, is designated a “global terrorist” by the US and blacklisted by the UN along with Osama bin Laden. The agreement obliges the Afghan government to do what it can to have the restrictions lifted.
Hezb-i-Islami has only intermittently been active on the battlefield in recent years; its last known major attack was in 2013, when at least 15 people, including six US soldiers, were killed in Kabul.
Saleem said Hekmatyar’s associates, including his family, all appeared united behind him and “are not dissenting with their leader.”
Negotiations began in July 2014, when Hekmatyar received a letter from Ghani, then campaigning to become president, noting that one of Hekmatyar’s key conditions for peace — the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan — was about to be met, Karim said.
“That was the beginning,” Karim added.
Progress stalled after US President Barack Obama decided to leave a 10,000-strong force in the country through to the end of this year until Hekmatyar dropped the condition and renamed it “a goal” earlier this year.
Karim and a number of Afghan officials have said that a peace agreement with Hekmatyar’s group could encourage Taliban fighters to end their participation in the war and eventually lead to a full-blown peace.
However, others regard Hekmatyar as politically irrelevant and lacking any real influence.
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