KABUL - Efforts are underway for organizing an international meeting about the Afghan peace process in China where representatives of the US, Europe, Russia, India and neighboring countries of Afghanistan would participate, a credible source said Sunday.
A well-placed government official, who wished to go unnamed, told Pajhwok Afghan News that work the plan was underway but details in this regard were yet to be specified.
Another source also confirmed the report about organizing an international event about the Afghan peace process in China over the next few weeks.
Zabihullah Farhang, a lecturer of international relations, told Pajhwok Afghan News that hopes for peace would increase if representatives of the Afghan government also participated in the proposed conference.
The US and the Afghan governments wanted ceasefire and Europe and India supported this idea, he said.
Russia was trying to introduce Taliban as a group under its own control, ignoring the movement’s past, he said. “In this situation, China holds on to an obscure foreign policy as on the one hand it calls foreign forces’ withdrawal from Afghanistan a threat to regional security and on the other it does not reveal its position about Taliban, he said.
“So this meeting would open up a heterogeneous environment for two different ideas and no ceasefire would be agreed upon nor foreign forces would specify a withdrawal date,” Farhang said.
Reports about a big meeting in China comes as the seventh round of peace talks between the US and the Taliban are expected to take place next Saturday.
A day earlier, Afghan politicians including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Atta Mohammad Noor, Mohammad Karim Khalili, Anwarul Haq Ahadi, Hamid Gilani, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Latif Pedram, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Ahmad Wali Massoud and some others attended a conference about the Afghan peace process in Pakistan’s Lahore city.
The meeting continues today but the Taliban, who were also invited, did not attend it. (Pajhwok)