Bonn conference useless without Pakistan: Afghan MP

[Omar1984]

Bonn conference useless without Pakistan: Afghan MP


ISLAMABAD: Afghan Parliamentarian Huma Sultani has said that Bonn Conference on Afghanistan’s future has lost its usefulness without Pakistan’s participation.

In an exclusive interview with Online on phone from Kabul, the member of Wolesi Jirga, or Lower House of the parliament from Ghazni province, said that the Bonn Conference will fail to produce any result for peace and stability in Afghanistan as the parties to the conflict including Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami have rejected it.

“Now when Pakistan, an important stakeholder of peace in the region, is also boycotting the US-backed conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, its failure is inevitable,” she added.

She said that in fact the international community is not serious in peace in Afghanistan and the conference was only called in to forward agenda of US in the region. “Europe is passing through economic recession what they can donate for future in Afghanistan, they can hardly bear expenses of their own soldiers,” she further said while commenting on post 2014 support by EU to Afghanistan.

The parliamentarian claimed that only she has been in contact with Taliban Supreme Commander Mullah Omer, who is ready for peace talks. But the Karzai’s administration and his foreigner supporters are not serious in holding peace talks.

“They some time urges Pakistan to help in peace talks. None of the Pkistani official including the prime minister and the military leader ship has access to Omer for the last one year and I again say that only I have contact with him. Even top leader of Haqqani network cannot meet him, though they may have some telephonic contacts,” she claimed.

Sultani said that solution to Afghanistan is simple and that is a point where all stakeholders within Afghanistan could agree. She suggested a government of the neutral, sincere and Afghan patriot government. “This suggestion is even acceptable to Mullah Omer. The current government is not sincere; it is corrupt and stool of foreigners. Leaders of Northern Alliance, personalities of former Mujahideen, Taliban and the present officials are not acceptable. There should be entire new people who can go for peace,” the parliamentarian said.

The member of Wolesi jirga said that she was making efforts for peace by bargaining peace between President Karzai and Mullah Omer but useless as Karzai was not serious for peace talks.

She blamed that the government in Afghanistan has banned free media in the country and her voice is not given coverage now.

“Now I want to visit Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China and other regional countries to interact with media for hearing my urges for peace. And I already submitted my passport to Pakistani embassy in Kabul for visiting Peshawar and Islamabad. But, so far I was not given permission,” she said.

Pakistan has boycotted the Bonn conference as a protest against NATO raids against two Pakistan posts in Mohmand Agency along Afghan border killing 24 Pakistani soldiers and wounding 16 others. After the attack Pakistan blocked supply route to NATO in Afghanistan via Pakistan and ordered US to vacate Shamsi airbase in Pakistan’s Balochistan.



ONLINE - International News Network

 

[PakShah]

So the world is crying because Pakistan is not attending the Bonn Conference.

lol, the Bonn Conference without Pakistan is just going to be a "vacation" for those who attend the conference.

 

[canadian icehole]

^^^ conferences in general are nothing more than an all-expense paid vacation. Policies are usually negotiated long before the head of state meet.

 

[Donatello]

Back channel diplomacy will continue, regardless. There are back channels between US and North Korea, US and Libya and US and Iran.


It is the last line of diplomatic effort.

 

[Omar1984]

Afghan Peace Effort Hits Wall

Pakistan's Pullout From Bonn Meeting, No Taliban Role Bodes Ill for Cooperation


BONN, Germany—Monday's international conference on Afghanistan, initially convened to encourage talks with the Taliban and spur regional cooperation, is highlighting instead the likely dead end in the peace outreach and the failure to get Pakistani help in stabilizing the country.

The Bonn gathering, held 10 years after another meeting here created Afghanistan's first post-Taliban government and marked the beginning of unprecedented international involvement in the country, is bringing together senior officials from nearly 100 nations, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the United Nations Secretary General.

Not attending, however, are the Taliban—who were excluded from the original Bonn setup and have waged an intensifying insurgency ever since. Pakistan, too, decided to boycott the conference after some 24 of its soldiers were killed a week ago in a U.S. airstrike near the Afghan border. Another neighbor, Iran, which is attending, said it will use the Bonn pulpit to campaign against U.S. military bases on Afghan soil.

Just as Iran's foreign minister arrived in Bonn Sunday afternoon, the country's Fars news agency reported that Iranian forces downed an American drone that strayed into Iranian airspace. The U.S.-led coalition command in Kabul said its troops lost control of an unarmed drone over western Afghanistan last week.

"The narrative of regional cooperation being built up in Washington and other Western capitals in no way matches reality," said Candace Rondeaux, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, a global think tank. "Everybody who should be at the table working together is working at cross purposes. "

When the Bonn meeting was initially announced last year, hopes were high that the tentative peace outreach would bring concrete results by now. Germany, in particular, was engaged in organizing what seemed like promising contacts with Tayeb Agha, believed to represent the senior Taliban command. These expectations were punctured, however, after a purported Taliban peace emissary assassinated Afghanistan's top negotiator, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, in Kabul in September.

Relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, meanwhile, steadily deteriorated after the May killing of Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil, with American officials openly accusing Islamabad of funding and arming the Taliban and the related Haqqani network.

Pakistan's decision to boycott the Bonn gathering made it impossible for any potential Taliban-linked figures to participate, said Thomas Ruttig, senior analyst at the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analyst Network: "If the Pakistanis are not going, the Taliban cannot come."

The conference organizers are playing down the significance of the Pakistani pullout. "It is regrettable—but it is really their loss for not being part of this constructive and rewarding process," Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister, Jawed Ludin, said in an interview.

The German hosts were even more dismissive. Speaking minutes after a protocol officer carried out a flagpole with the Pakistani banner from the conference's venue in the former West German parliament this weekend, Germany's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Michael Steiner, argued that the issues of regional cooperation already had been discussed with Pakistan at a meeting in Istanbul last month.

Pakistan's absence "doesn't change the outcome," Mr. Steiner said. "It doesn't affect a single comma."

Another senior Western diplomat broke out laughing when he heard Mr. Steiner's words. "It is the elephant in the room," he said.

With hopes for progress in the peace talks and regional cooperation dashed, the Bonn conference's main message, officials said, will be to reassure the Afghans that the international community will continue its support even after most foreign troops leave in 2014—as long as Mr. Karzai's administration improves governance and clamps down on corruption.

Mr. Karzai made such a pledge Sunday night, addressing a dinner for the attending delegations. "We will remain committed to the reforms we have promised," he said, "and to working for a peace process that is Afghan-owned and Afghan-led."

The Afghan government estimates it will need as much as $10 billion a year in international aid for many years to come to prevent its administration and security forces from collapsing—a level that many Western analysts say is unrealistic. Ahead of the Bonn gathering, Afghan officials had touted the idea of a so-called "transition dividend" under which coalition nations would commit to investing in Afghanistan part of the money that they save by pulling out their troops in coming years.

This idea, however, was dropped from the conference's declaration, diplomats said, in part because of donor nations' resistance to such commitments. Actual levels of international financial support for Afghanistan aren't scheduled to be discussed until a pledging conference in Japan next year.

Still, Mr. Ludin said, the Bonn communique Monday will contain "very solid language" about the international community's continuing financial support for Afghanistan in the decade after 2014. "The world is aware of Afghanistan's unique needs during these years," he said, "and of the fact that Afghanistan won't be able to pay for all its costs with its own revenue for quite some time."


Hopes Dim for Bonn Meeting on Afghanistan - WSJ.com

 

[Sher Malang]

Huma Sultani is the one who is claiming that Mullah Omar is in her house LOL

 

[Devil Soul]

its nothing but a TEA PARTY ...

 

[iPhone]

Yeah, you should have thought about it before you conspired to kill our soldiers.

 

[Omar1984]

Pakistan Holds Firm to Afghanistan Conference Boycott


Pakistan is holding firm to its boycott of the Bonn international conference on Afghanistan, and warns it will stay away from any future peace process unless its sovereignty and security concerns are better respected.

With Pakistan conspicuously absent from Monday's international conference in Bonn, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter went on domestic TV here in Islamabad to express Washington's disappointment.

"Afghanistan is Pakistan's neighbor. Pakistan deserves a voice at the table to talk about these things. We have tried to convince our Pakistani friends to attend. If they choose not to attend, that is their choice," said Munter.

Pakistani officials announced a boycott of the Bonn conference soon after U.S. helicopters and fighter jets reportedly fired on two Pakistani military encampments, killing 24 soldiers. Pakistan resisted all efforts to persuade it to send envoys to the conference, including a phone call Sunday, on the eve of the conference, to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari from President Barack Obama, who expressed regret over the incident.

Ambassador Munter said Monday the United States is complying with a Pakistan's order to vacate U.S. personnel from an airbase in southwestern Pakistan. He repeated the White House's message that last week's attack was a "tragedy" and a "mistake." In an interview with Pakistan state television, he hinted that those responsible may face punishment.

"I can only say that we will have an investigation, and that if people have been found to have made mistakes, there will be results," he said.

Pakistani leaders says they are fully reviewing the terms for the country's engagement with the United States. Abdul Basit, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad, said Pakistan supports Afghan peace efforts, but that last month's NATO attack created circumstances that would not permit Pakistan to attend the Bonn conference. He said if those circumstances do not change, it will be difficult for Pakistan to associate itself with any peace process in Afghanistan.


Pakistan's main demand is for better coordination between its military and the U.S.-led NATO stabilization force in Afghanistan to ensure that Pakistani sovereignty is respected.


Pakistan Holds Firm to Afghanistan Conference Boycott | News | English

 

[Omar1984]

Pakistan, Taliban Make Presence Felt In Bonn By Their Absence

BONN, Germany -- The message coming from Bonn was clear: the international community intends to support Afghanistan after foreign combat troops leave the country, and that means new training for Afghanistan's security forces and further development aid for its economy.

At least that's the message conveyed by the bevy of high-powered representatives of 85 countries and 16 international organizations gathered at the so-called Bonn II conference.

But if participants' focus was on committing to Afghanistan after foreign troops leave by the end of 2014, two key players made their presence felt by their absence: Pakistan and the Taliban.



​​"We would, of course, have benefited from Pakistan's contribution to this conference," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted. "And to that end, nobody in this hall is more concerned than the United States is about getting an accurate picture of what occurred in the recent border incident."


Pakistan, Taliban Make Presence Felt In Bonn By Their Absence

 

[Omar1984]