Hezb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said on Sunday that as the Taliban did not want the current government, an interim government remains the only solution to peace in Afghanistan.
He emphasised that the current Afghan government wanted the war to continue and was not in favour of peace which could only be achieved if “all foreigners leave” the country.
Sharing details of his recent visit to Pakistan, he said the leaders there had assured him of their cooperation in the Afghan peace process.
Last week, Hekmatyar had given a press conference in Islamabad on Oct. 20 where he said that the U.S. had been “defeated in Afghanistan” and Washington had “no choice except to leave the country.”
Criticizing the ongoing peace talks in Doha, Hekmatyar said they were between the team of the Presidential Palace and the Taliban and are not “intra-Afghan” talks.
“These talks are not intra-Afghan talks, because there is no presence of many Afghan political parties in these talks, we are not there. There is a need for consensus first so that we can go towards talks with a unified idea,” he said.
During a talk at a think tank on Oct. 23, he warned that the only durable solution for peace in Afghanistan was that “the U.S. should withdraw its troops and a non-aligned, independent and sovereign government should be formed by Afghans in light of their beliefs and traditions without any interference.”
“Otherwise, the country would slip into another civil war,” warned the former prime minister.
Despite, As parties to the Afghan peace talks process in Doha stall over preliminary issues, Atta Mohammad Noor, CEO of Jamiat Party and former governor of Balkh province has called on New Delhi to help by playing a more proactive role in the dialogue and hold talks with the Taliban.
Noor, who is currently in India, is the fourth prominent Afghan leader to visit India in the past few weeks to discuss the peace talks process – after visits by Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation; former Afghan Vice-president Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan politician and former Mujahideen Leader.
In an interview with ThePrint in Delhi this past week, Noor, who picked up a weapon in 2016 to save the lives of Indian diplomats during an attack on their consulate in Balkh province, said he was there to try to garner India’s support.
“The situation in Afghanistan is currently quite complicated. That’s the reason I am here in India. I really hope that India will be more proactive because India has got power, it has got leverage, and it has got influence in the region,” Noor said.
“If India does not do that, then this will give more ground to the Pakistanis. As the Americans are leaving, the Pakistanis are finding more space in Afghanistan,” Noor said.
Until now, however, India’s policy has been that it will not engage with the Taliban, as it continues to see the fundamentalist group as being aided by Pakistan.
