KABUL - The new head of Afghanistan's High Peace Council called on insurgent groups to renounce violence at his inauguration ceremony in Kabul on Tuesday.
Salahuddin Rabbani was officially installed as chairman of the council, which has had no chief since the assassination of its former leader and Salahuddin's father, Burhanuddin Rabbani, in September last year.

Rabbani called on the Afghan people and scholars to support him in bringing peace and stability in the country in his inauguration speech.
He also urged the armed opposition groups to join the Afghan reconciliation program and to renounce violence in order to end the foreign presence in the country.

"If we think about independence and the development of our country, and if we want our country to stand on its own feet, we should renounce violence and choose the way of peace," Rabbani told the ceremony attendees.
"If we do so, there will be no need for the presence of foreign forces in our country."

Afghan First Vice President Fahim Qasim also commented on the efforts at peace in the country, saying that demands from the different political parties were threatening the future peace and security of Afghanistan.
He said with each political party prescribing a solution for Afghanistan, they have failed to address the most important things which should come first like "hospitals and hospital beds".

"Unfortunately, our political demands have reached its peak which has disappointed the people. If each of us prescribes a solution for Afghanistan which is headed towards instability, it only destroys the country," he said.
He also said that Afghans should accept and respect each other or the country will be destroyed.

"Everyone says I am the best but never considers the others. We have to be cautious," he added.
A member of the High Peace Council, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, said the armed opposition groups should realise that the desire for peace should not be taken as sign of weakness.

"The opposition should know that we always want peace, but we are not weak," he said at the ceremony.

The High Peace Council was established in 2010 by Afghan president Hamid Karzai in an effort to bring Taliban and other insurgent groups in the negotiating table for a political solution to the ongoing violence.

Former Afghan president and member of Afghan Parliament Burhanuddin Rabbani was appointed as head of the council before he was assassinated in September last year in a suicide attack in his home. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. (Tolo News)