Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

The Expectations of Afghans from Regional Countries in New Political Chapter of Afghanistan

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The Expectations of Afghans from Regional Countries in New Political Chapter of Afghanistan

On the eve of new political chapter, the people of Afghanistan expect the regional country to play a constructive role in peace process of Afghanistan.  The people of Afghanistan welcome the new position of Tehran and New Delhi as they both have rejected return of the extremist group in Afghanistan.  Earlier, the Russia had also refused the return of Islamic Emirate back in Afghanistan. Now it is the turn of China, Central Asia, other Islamic countries and more importantly Pakistan to show its position about Emirate on the eve of new political chapter in the country. However, Pakistan has repeatedly shown its friendly position in world to Afghanistan, but now as the President Ghani said today, it is the time to choose a path of practical friendship with the people of Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan are extremely tired war and conflicts while these conflicts would produce no outcome other than expanding insecurity in the region.
So, in the current juncture of peace process with Taliban, Afghan people particularly expect from Pakistan to forget the past and build the future on mutual respects. Afghan people expect Pakistan to recognize the national sovereignty of Afghanistan and accept that Afghanistan is an independent state that independently adopts its domestic and foreign policies. As other countries, Pakistan can pursue its interests through legitimate ways and not through supporting an extremist group who crazily kill men, women civilian and even innocent children. If Pakistan is not behind them, it should prove its honesty by expelling the nests of terrorists from their soils. Afghanistan has always called for good-faith relations and good will with neighboring countries, regions and the world, and has never intervened in the affairs of other countries. Afghanistan does not allow any country to use its soil against other countries and always respects the sovereignty and national interests of the countries.
Pakistan and India are also expected not to bring their disputes and rivalries inside Afghanistan. India and Pakistan have had historic odds and hostility which resulted several fruitless wars, conflicts, and military standoffs against each and other, but it has always overflowed to Afghanistan. As soon as Afghanistan establish a friendly relation with India, Pakistan become unhappy but when Afghanistan gets closer to Pakistan India seems unhappy while Afghanistan is an independent country and has the right to establish relationship with any country as long as not impose any threats to others. The expectation and message of Afghan people from both brother countries are to put an end to hostile policies anymore. At least they must not bring their problem inside Afghanistan. It is time that the Asian countries learn from the history of European countries. Although they passed the worst historic war and long tensions, later they could open a new chapter of friendship and co-existence. For example, in First World War and Second World War there were orderly 35 million and 70 million causalities as a result of the two wars but it could not hold them back to open constructive relationship and unions.
If the neighboring countries unitedly support a moderate and democratic system in the country, it will not only ensure their own interests, but also peace and security in the region. Therefore, it is time to invite the neighboring countries to pause and review their past policy towards Afghanistan. Although millions of people including man, women and innocent children were killed or migrated, no one achieved anything other than hatreds of people and God. When we look as the past, a large part of Afghanistan’s trouble linked to regional and neighboring countries. Sometimes they attempted to impose their puppet government on Afghanistan other times they wanted to occupy the entire country.  In recent years and decades, although they realized that those dreams are unachievable in Afghanistan, they expressed concerns over the presence of international forces in Afghanistan. Now that the foreigners have decided to leave the country and past dreams are also not achievable in Afghanistan, the neighbors must have learned lessons from the past that playing a constructive role in Afghanistan is in their interests. Therefore, all the neighboring countries are expected to support a moderate and democratic system in Afghanistan; otherwise the people of Afghanistan may once again be compelled to seek help from those people who are more than 6000 miles away from the country.
Lastly, people of Afghanistan also expect Afghan government and political leaders to have a balanced policy in national and regional level while staying far from the world power competition.  If one part of Afghanistan’s problem linked to neighboring countries, the other part is linked to our own weakness. We must note that we live in twenty first century with new demands and expectations. We must not have the same mentality as Taliban have. Unfortunately, the Taliban still considered as an inheritor of past monopolistic policy which was based on exclusion, injustice, ethnicity, oppression and xenophobia. Based on this monopolistic view, they entered in the politics of Afghanistan with destroying and shedding blood while fattened by the intellectual origins of Islamic fundamentalists.  With dogmatic and monopolistic views towards power, they have not only blocked the way of progress and development of Afghanistan but also challenged the peace process. Now, the national and international community unanimously insists on securing peace in Afghanistan, but they stand against universal values and veto everyone’s wishes; the resistance of these groups to the peace process has added to the complexities of war and peace in Afghanistan while every day a new dimension is added to it.

Mohammad Zahir Akbari is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at mohammadzahirakbari@gmail.com

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