KABUL, April 8: Support is building among Afghanistan’s regional neighbours for a comprehensive peace process with the Taliban, but Pakistan’s backing and access to militant leaders are crucial to getting stalled talks on track, a top Afghan diplomat said.    

The United States and Afghanistan have for months been trying to draw the Afghan Taliban and other militants into talks. But in March the Taliban suspended exploratory negotiations with the United States, seen by backers as a way to end the country’s conflict, while refusing to meet President Hamid Karzai’s government, calling its officials US ‘stooges’.

Jawed Ludin, the deputy foreign minister and a former chief of staff and spokesman for Mr Karzai, told Reuters late on Saturday ahead of a trip to Australia that he was confident an agreement would soon be signed with Qatar to open a Taliban representative office in the Gulf state as a vehicle for talks, about which he was ‘positive’.

Mr Ludin said he also held strong hopes that both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia’s governments would weigh in to give political momentum to Afghan government’s efforts to engage the Taliban.

“We are working under the assumption that once this process moves, and once we bring some of the other contributing elements to this, we need to make sure we create an environment with support from not just Pakistan, but other countries – notably Saudi Arabia – but above all Pakistan,” said Mr Ludin.

“I think at the regional level, we seem to be coming closer to a consensus that is basically the need of the day, and that there will have to be a political process, there will have to be something done to end violence and bring peace to Afghanistan.”

The ‘key contribution’ for talks to succeed would need to be from Pakistan, where the Afghan president travelled in February to ask for access to Taliban leaders belonging so the so-called Quetta Shura, Mr Ludin said.

The so-called Quetta Shura members would be the decision makers in any substantive peace negotiations. But Pakistan denies Taliban leaders enjoy sanctuary within its borders.

‘Spoiler alert’

“There are a number of elements and we all know what those are. The question of access, the question of providing a conducive environment for contacts to be established and for talks to take place wherever they are,” Mr Ludin said.

“We need to bring about an environment where leadership of the Taliban can viably use that office to engage with Afghanistan, with the government of Afghanistan, in constructive forward-looking talks about the peace process and about taking this step forward.”

A revitalised peace process would be in the interests of the entire region, he said, although some groups he would not name were acting as ‘spoilers’ to a negotiated peace after decades of war during which millions of Afghans have fled.

“There is no doubt that there are various diverging interests at work,” Mr Ludin said. “What is important is that we really do not create excuses and opportunities for spoilers, for elements that wish to undermine the current transition. That should be our priority and that will be our priority.”

Mr Karzai has demanded US and other foreign troops withdraw from Afghan villages after an American soldier allegedly massacred 17 civilians in Kandahar, while the burning of the copies of Holy Quran in February triggered protest riots that raged for a week.

Afghanistan had signed strategic agreements with several countries contributing troops to the Nato coalition in the country, including Britain and Italy. The government would soon finalise one more with close US ally Australia, Mr Ludin said before leaving for Canberra.

The transition to fully Afghan-provided security to be completed by 2014 was poorly understood, he said, as the country would then enter a period of transformation, with western aid and advisers likely to remain in the country.

Economic aid would also continue to ensure no sudden economic collapse and flight of capital as wealthy Afghans and businesses moved their assets to safety elsewhere.

“In the last 10 years, it has been about military security assistance to Afghanistan. Now that we have our own institutions, we don’t need that kind of support. What we need is your political commitment ... and also not least your economic assistance in the long term,” he said.—Reuters