July 30, 2015
News
US lauds Pak role in facilitating talks between Afghan govt, Taliban
APPISLAMABAD: US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Daniel F Feldman on Wednesday billed the peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban as ‘extremely important’ and praised Islamabad for playing the role of a facilitator to broker a reconciliation process between the two sides.
“Afghan talks on July 7 have been extremely important and we welcome the role played by Pakistan to facilitate these talks,” he said. The talks were held at Murree, a tourist resort, where these negotiations were held and attended by the US and China as observers. The second round of talks is scheduled to be held tomorrow (Friday).
Feldman flew into Islamabad Wednesday and will be leaving today after meeting government ministers and officials during which he would have discussion with them on multi-faceted Pak-US relations.
Referring to “Afghan-owned and Afghan-led talks,” at Murree, he said it was an important initiative of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who was working to bring peace to his war-ravaged country. He refused to speculate on Wednesday’s media reports of the killing of one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar two years back by saying he had nothing to add on that.
Reiterating the US stance on Afghanistan, he said, it has had a consistent position that a reconciliation process was a ‘surest way of sustainability’ and security in Afghanistan. The US has an observer status at the Murree talks and Washington ‘will be happy to play that role if desired or any other role’.
On result of these talks, he said “we welcome an outcome where Taliban break from Al-Qaeda and embrace Afghan Constitution, and the US will be looking forward to that process”. Questioned if the US would not walk away from Afghanistan as it did soon after Soviets’ withdrawal from Afghanistan Feldman said the US did not intend to abandon the region. That was the reason it had inked a security agreement with Kabul and had elevated its strategic dialogue with Pakistan by setting up six working groups to work on key areas which include counterterrorism, proliferation and energy.
Feldman told a questioner that it had been part of the peace processes in the world where fighting and talks had been going on side by side. He said insurgency in Afghanistan would test grit of the Afghan security forces who in the course of this year had ‘done very well’ to face up the challenges thrown up by the Taliban.
About a question on the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan to flush out and destroy havens of terrorists, he said “we give big credit to Pakistan military which has taken important strides in countering extremists threat”. The US acknowledged Pakistan’s sacrifices and hoped it would continue to execute its operation against terrorists without any distinction between extremism and terrorism, he added.
On Pak-India relations, the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan said since the democratic transition of power in two nuclear-capable neighbours he hoped the two countries would seize the opportunities to work for stability and sustainability in the region.
Earlier in his opening remarks, Feldman said both Washington and Islamabad had been working very very closely under the umbrella of strategic dialogue and “we have really made great strides on counterterrorism and Al-Qaeda”.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk