DM Monitoring
KABUL: A U.S.-drafted peace plan for Afghanistan, calls for the current government to be replaced with an interim administration until a new constitution is agreed and elections held while a joint commission monitors a cease-fire. The warring parties have long harbored deep objections to key ideas in the proposal, however.
The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, shared the “Transitional Peace Government” proposal last week with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, opposition and civil society leaders, and Taliban negotiators. Under the interim government, the national parliament could either be expanded to include Taliban members or suspended until after the election, the plan suggests.
It also says that Afghanistan could “not host terrorists or permit terrorist-related activity on its soil” that threatens other countries, and that the Taliban would have to abandon safe havens and military ties “in neighboring countries.”
Four political sources in Kabul who spoke on condition of anonymity, including a senior presidential palace official, confirmed the authenticity of a copy of the draft plan seen by Reuters. The plan has been reported by TOLO News and other Afghan outlets.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters on Monday: “Every idea we have put on the table, every proposal that is out there … we understand that this process, at its core, must be Afghan-led and Afghan-owned.”
The new U.S. administration of President Joe Biden wants to revive stalled peace talks before May 1, when the last 2,500 U.S. troops must leave Afghanistan under a February 2020 deal struck between the Taliban and the former Trump administration.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week proposed in a letter to Afghan leaders that Turkey hold a senior-level meeting “in the coming weeks to finalize a peace agreement.”
In recent speeches, Ghani has said no interim government would be formed “as long as I am alive.” But Blinken was uncompromising in his letter, which was released by Afghanistan’s TOLO TV.
“I am making this clear to you so that you understand the urgency of my tone regarding collective work,” he wrote. In the letter, Blinken said a May 1 deadline for a final withdrawal of U.S. troops is still on the table. Even with America’s $4 billion in aid to Afghanistan’s National Security Forces, a U.S. withdrawal could mean quick territorial gains for the Taliban.
Ghani’s first vice president, Amrullah Saleh, said the president had received the letter and was unmoved by its contents. He said Ghani was not ready to embrace the secretary of state’s accelerated pace toward a settlement.
“We are neither concerned about the letter nor has it changed our position,” Saleh said, according to remarks carried by AP. He thanked the U.S. for its sacrifices and financial assistance over the past 20 years but said the Afghan government won’t succumb to dictation. “We will make peace with dignity, but never … an imposed peace,” he said at a ceremony on the anniversary of the death of a former defense minister. Ghani has been accused by his political opponents of trying to cling to power at all costs.
