President Ashraf Ghani on Friday said he is not an obstacle to peace, but he is a champion in peace in Afghanistan, responding to the Taliban’s remarks expressed early in the day who blamed the incumbent government for hindering the efforts to end the conflicts through a political settlement.
Addressing the ASPEN Security Forum, President Ghani highlighted the Afghan peace process, the fight against Daesh, and the rumors about the establishment of an interim government as a result of a potential peace agreement with the Taliban.
Ghani rejected the prospect for the establishment of an interim government in the country in the wake of the past experience and said that he has sworn in to uphold the constitution of the nation. He said election is the way forward to transfer of power.
“We must agree on the date of the election so that we have the full legal transfer of the authority. We have had interim governments. They’ve led to bloodshed. People of Kabul, Kabul was destroyed in 1992 by an interim government. A prime minister was bombarding his president and the president had to fight back with the prime minister. The prime minister, Mr. Hekmatyar, never came to Kabul,” Ghani said.
“The citizens of Afghanistan must be empowered… Where would I get the authority to dissolve the Republic? I have sworn to uphold the constitution,” Ghani said, apparently referring to a key Taliban negotiator’s remarks who said they will agree on peace when Ghani steps down from power.
Ghani said the current level of violence should be considered when it comes to plans to withdraw forces from the country.
“Now, robust diplomacy and a stand on condition-based approaches will enable us all hopefully to resume meaningful discussion and this would be a predictable process where all the US government, the military side, the intelligence side and the diplomatic side, would be engaged and the decisions would be predictable which would allow us to adjust,” Ghani said. “We must ask what is required to preserve the legacy of the US presence in Afghanistan.”
President Ghani said that no one should underestimate “our resolve” and that “none of us has plans to live somewhere else or abandon this country that has suffered so much.”
Ghani said there should be a strong verification mechanism for the Taliban’s commitments.
“You have to have ironclad agreements and verification mechanisms… Many peace agreements are Trojan horses. They promise the moon and deliver the opposite,” he reiterated.
