Kabul wants Russia to bring Taliban to talks

By Mehmet Ozturk, Faruk Tokat and Muhammad Arsalan Bakhtiar

ANKARA (AA) - The Afghan government has told Anadolu Agency it will push regional neighbors as well as Russia to press the Taliban for peace as Moscow gets ready to host a conference on Afghanistan in mid-April.

In an exclusive interview, Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai said he would go to Moscow with an open heart and mind.

“We would also like to make sure that we explain to them that any kind of peace process has to be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned and, if any peace process is pushed without the Afghan leadership, it will fail,” he said.

This comes as concerns in Afghanistan grow about Russia’s alleged support for the Taliban -- which is bent upon forcing Kabul's foreign backers out of the country.

Zamir Kabulov, the Russian president’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said earlier this week the Taliban’s demand for foreign forces’ withdrawal was “legitimate”.

Russia’s purported support for the Taliban is seen as a counter-weight to an emerging Daesh in Afghanistan, which Moscow believes could spill over into Central Asia and subsequently Russia itself.

“The philosophy of supporting one non-state actor [the Taliban] against the other [Daesh] is wrong. We will not accept it,” Hekmat Khalil Karzai told Anadolu Agency.

The Afghan minister -- who lost his elder brother to a Taliban attack in 2014 -- is set to lead the Kabul government’s delegation to the conference in Moscow on April 14.

Pakistan, India, China, Iran and a number of Central Asian states have also been invited.

- 'No deals' with Daesh, al-Qaeda

Karzai, who previously headed the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies in Afghanistan, said regional countries should join forces in forming a strategy to thwart the threat of militancy.

He said the government was determined to reach a peace deal with local insurgent groups such as the Taliban, the Haqqani network and Hezb-e-Islami.

However, he said the government had “no intentions” of striking deals with “terrorist groups that have global agenda such as al-Qaeda and Daesh”.

“At times, the Taliban feel they need to have certain level of victory on the battlefield, and then negotiate from a position of strength.

“But that never really happened; they felt that in 2015 and in 2016 they might win several provinces and come to control them, but that never happened,” he said.

He said the government was putting the idea of peace to the Taliban. “We have made a major concession -- that we would negotiate without any preconditions,” he added.

Karzai said there was a clear realization that the conflict in Afghanistan cannot be won through military means.

“We need to engage … we need to engage in political discourse, [to find a] political settlement with groups that are Afghan”.

Karzai said the Kabul government was not in favor of breaking the Taliban into factions and then striking individual peace deals with a multitude of splinter groups.

However, peace with the main bulk of the Taliban is possible, Karzai maintained.

“There are certain groups [within the Taliban] who believe peace is the best way forward, but there are individuals who say ‘let us continue with the military side’.

“We hope those people who feel peaceful engagement and discussion will prevail … [will] come to sit at the table with us,” he added.

- Historical ties

Karzai claimed an intensive military campaign against Daesh in eastern parts of the country bordering Pakistan had “broken the back” of the group.

Recalling historic ties between Kabul and Ankara, he praised Turkey’s role both in its NATO contributions and in its own capacity in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

To a question about the possible return of Afghan militants from fighting in Syria alongside the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Karzai said Kabul was concerned about those individuals.

“We are reaching out and talking to our neighbors and preparing our security forces, this is something with which not just us but all regional countries should be concerned,” he said.

He said Moscow and Kabul shared a unique history and Afghanistan had constantly told Russia that relationship should be for one purpose -- to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table.

“They [Russians] have established a relationship with the Taliban because they feel there are other threats that the Taliban can deal with.

“The best way to deal with these threats is to have a relationship with the legitimate government of Afghanistan”, he stressed.