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20 February 2012
FEATURE STORY
The Pitfalls of Negotiations in AfPak
BUSINESS
No articles featured today
NATION
US Opposes End of Night Raids, Top US Senator Says
NATO speedup of transfer to Afghan forces highlights problems
Afghan talks to fail without all groups-Hizb-i-Islami
U.S. senators, Afghan leaders discuss parameters for long-term partnership
Two Terrorist Groups Captured in Mazar, Police Chief Says
Harsh Afghan winter kills 40 children
Stumbling Afghan peace talks need re-think: advisor
Suicide car bomb hits Afghan police in Kandahar
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Flies to UK
Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan enter into alliance
US, Afghan Strategic Pact Talks Underway, Foreign Ministry Says
Afghan Textbooks to Cut Out Much of the Country's Post-1973 History
In war-ravaged Afghanistan, combat sports reign
In Kabul, First Hints Of Reconciliation Efforts
Tensions Continue in Afghan Parliament
Readers Write: Wind turbines bad for earth, people; wrong US motives in Afghanistan
Former Afghan FM: US Seeking to Legitimize Taliban through Negotiations
Afghan refugees caught between Iran and a hard place
PRESS RELEASES
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FEATURE STORY
The Pitfalls of Negotiations in AfPak
The National Interest
By Marvin Weinbaum, James P. Farwell
February 17, 2012
Over the last year, relations between Pakistan and the United States have been driven to ever-lower depths. The leaderships of both countries are struggling to rebuild the semblance of a working relationship, especially regarding Afghanistan. Pakistan has long been convinced that the United States and its allies were bound to fail in Afghanistan and that the American war on terrorism is responsible for the threats Pakistan faces from its own extremists. Meanwhile, the United States regularly complains that Pakistan plays a double game, providing logistical and intelligence assistance while also protecting and sometimes facilitating the Taliban insurgency.
While the strategic interests of Washington and Islamabad have so often clashed over Afghanistan, their interests have lately converged on an endgame for that embattled country. Their common strategic approach aims to negotiate a grand bargain with senior Taliban leaders. But it faces heavy odds and as presently conceived threatens to exclude other important stakeholders in Afghanistan—including the Karzai regime itself.
The Push for Negotiations
As U.S. and allied troops depart, there is a growing lack of confidence in the transition to Afghan security forces, resulting in a desperate diplomatic push by Washington to find a political solution to the conflict. A coalition government would provide a soft landing for a post-2014 Afghanistan and allowing the orderly exit of foreign forces. And a negotiated settlement of the conflict would ensure that the country’s constitutional and political framework was left intact and hard-won human-rights gains protected.
Pakistan is similarly anxious for a power-sharing agreement. Without one, Afghanistan could easily slip into a proxy civil war that draws in Iran, Russia and India on one side and Pakistan on the other. Pakistan’s military has held the Afghan Taliban in reserve as a force to secure Pakistan’s interests in the wake of a failed NATO counterinsurgency and a collapsing Afghanistan. But Pakistan’s generals are realists: they recognize that once in power, the Taliban will resist their manipulation. An outright Taliban victory might be undesirable and even dangerous for a Pakistan battling its own Taliban insurgency. The preferred outcome for Pakistan is instead rule by a coalition in Kabul. The Taliban’s presence would serve to blunt Indian influence while its governing partners curb any contagion of radical Islamist adventurism in Pakistan and the region.
Flawed Talks in Qatar
A previously reluctant Taliban has opened an office in Qatar. Both the United States and Pakistan see the decision as a significant breakthrough. American diplomats are convinced that conditions are ripe for talks and that pragmatists will prevail over dogmatists in the leadership circles around Mullah Muhammad Omar’s Taliban and his major allies, the Haqqani network and Gulbudin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami. With the right confidence building, insurgents can presumably be induced to sever their ties to international terrorist groups—including, above all, al-Qaeda.
Fearing being left out, Pakistan had previously scuttled direct contact between Taliban leaders and potential American interlocutors. Deep suspicions exist between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence services (ISI), as was confirmed by a recent NATO report based on interrogations of captured insurgents. Yet the ISI now feels confident, having helped to bring the Taliban to Qatar, that it can ensure that Pakistan’s interests will be represented in any negotiations.
The door should always be left open for talks with an adversary. But negotiations have the greatest likelihood of making progress when there is either a serious stalemate or one of the combatants—convinced it cannot prevail—seeks the best peace terms it can get. Neither of these conditions is present in the current Afghan conflict. There seem few incentives for the Taliban to have to compromise, given their goal of imposing sharia rule in Afghanistan. With NATO military operations scheduled to end in 2014, if not earlier, the Taliban has more reason than ever to believe that it has time and God on its side. Meanwhile, although Afghans and the international community may have doubts whether there can be a strictly military solution to the conflict, they are not willing to accede to the Taliban’s basic designs for an Afghan state.
The looming talks in Qatar threaten to set back the counterinsurgency being waged by Afghan and international forces and increase chances for a new civil war. An exhausted Afghan people approve of serious negotiations for peace. But the prospect that an unreconstructed Taliban may again wield domestic power drives most Afghans to hedge their loyalties toward the Kabul regime and cooperation with foreign forces. A coalition of Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras will fight rather than submit to any significant concessions to the Taliban.
Recognition of the Taliban in Qatar effectively accords the insurgency unearned legitimacy. More seriously, by taking the lead role in bringing the Taliban to the table, the United States and Pakistan have made it possible for the Taliban to exclude the Afghan government from participation in negotiations. Any peace process that fails to be inclusive of the Karzai government and all of Afghanistan’s major political stakeholders can never succeed. It will instead divide Afghans and set the stage for a protracted civil war.
Marvin G. Weinbaum is a scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute and former intelligence analyst in the U.S. Department of State. James P. Farwell is the author of The Pakistan Cauldron: Conspiracy, Assassination & Instability, and he is a Senior Research Scholar in Strategic Studies at the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.
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BUSINESS
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NATION
US Opposes End of Night Raids, Top US Senator Says
TOLOnews.com
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Night raids are in the vital interests of the men and women serving in the US forces in Afghanistan, the chair of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain, said at a press conference in Kabul on Sunday.
Senator McCain is leading a US delegation visiting Afghanistan to talk about a potential Afghan-US strategic pact.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai wants an end to night raids and the transfer of US-run prisons to Afghanistan before signing any pact.
"We emphasise to President Karzai that we believe that this issue can be resolved but we are strongly opposed to any termination of night raids because of the added risk it would put to the men and women of our military," Mr McCain said.
The US delegation called the strategic pact vital for Afghanistan and US and as well as the region.
The strategic partnership "really lays out this relationship for the long term and lays out the expectations on both sides," Senator John Hoeven, also part of the delegation, told those at the press conference.
He added that corruption and roadside bombs represent the main challenges ahead in Afghanistan.
Senator Richard Bluementhal, another US delegate in Kabul, agreed, saying: the "use of IEDs up by about 15 per cent and one of my priorities is to stand and stop the flow of ammonium calcium nitrate and other components of the roadside bombs and IEDs that kill our troops. In that regard, I remain highly dissatisfied and troubled by the role of the Pakistanis in [not] stopping the flow of this kind of fertiliser."
Some experts believe Afghanistan must sign a strategic pact with US, otherwise there is a risk of fresh violence being unleashed or Kabul falling into the hands of the Taliban after international combat troops withdraw from the country before the end of 2014.
A secret Nato report published by BBC earlier this month showed that the Taliban are positioning themselves to take over Kabul after the withdrawal of troops.
It also highlighted the relationship between Pakistani intelligence officials and the Afghan Taliban.
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NATO speedup of transfer to Afghan forces highlights problems
As allied commanders call Afghan forces capable of taking over most fighting by the end of 2013, the problems of the police and army come into sharper focus.
Los Angeles Times
By Laura King
February 20, 2012
Kabul, Afghanistan
At the gate of the capital's army recruitment headquarters, a young Afghan sergeant in crisp camouflage and a jaunty beret demanded a letter of introduction from arriving visitors. But when one was produced, written in Dari, the dominant language in Kabul, he asked one of the visitors to read it to him.
These days, Afghanistan's armed forces are under pressure as never before to dramatically step up their performance in everything from literacy to logistics. NATO is speeding up its transfer of fighting duties to the national police and army, and at the same time, the cash-pinched coalition intends to cut back substantially on plans for funding a long-term Afghan force strength of more than 350,000.
Even as senior allied commanders proclaim that a leaner, better-trained Afghan force will be capable of taking over most fighting duties from Western troops by the end of next year, the problems that have long plagued the Afghan police and army — repeated turncoat shootings aimed at Western mentors, drug use, high attrition rates, inadequate vetting of recruits, persistent logistical weakness and vulnerability to insurgent infiltration — are coming into sharper focus.
Recently leaked classified military reports, together with an unusually candid public assessment from an experienced U.S. military officer, have served to spotlight the degree of mistrust, mutual distaste and sometimes outright enmity between Afghan forces and their ostensible North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies at joint bases across Afghanistan.
Army Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, who served two tours in Afghanistan, published his scathing assessment of the Afghan police and army in an essay in the Armed Forces Journal this month. In a vividly recalled anecdote from Kunar province, in Afghanistan's east, he recounted a conversation last year with a police captain whose position had been attacked by the Taliban.
When Davis asked whether he and his men, knowing the insurgents' position, intended to counterattack, "the captain's head wheeled around, looking first at the interpreter and turning to me with an incredulous expression.... 'No! We don't go after them,' he said. 'That would be dangerous!'"
The combination of close proximity and cultural differences sometimes produces a volatile atmosphere between Afghan and Western troops who live and work together on joint bases, according to more than a dozen current and former junior officers in the NATO force and their Afghan counterparts who were interviewed about training practices.
Western military public-affairs officers may constantly highlight success stories arising from the training program, particularly the measurable improvement in the abilities of elite Afghan forces. Afghan troops are also beginning to take the lead in major military operations, and thousands of recruits are learning to read and write.
But day-to-day encounters between Western and Afghan foot soldiers are often fraught with anger and misunderstanding, these officers said.
Often, the Afghans describe their Western mentors as crass, patronizing and overbearing, while the NATO forces struggle to combat what they describe as a sometimes shocking lack of motivation and discipline on the Afghan side.
Afghan men are traditionally sensitive to any perceived insult, and with weapons readily at hand, what might otherwise be a small altercation can swiftly flare into a tragedy. An Afghan soldier from Balkh province in the north, who spoke on condition of anonymity after having deserted his unit last year, bitterly described being belittled by his German trainers for what he considered a minor infraction, though he considered himself a superior fighter.
"I was ready to confront my enemies, while they only want to hide in their bases," he scoffed. "I could have done something to them they would always remember."
Ominously, the Taliban and other insurgent groups have come to understand that so-called green-on-blue shootings — Afghan police or soldiers opening fire on Western troops — can have a dramatic effect on the willingness of NATO countries and their allies to meet previously agreed-to training commitments. That was illustrated last month when France announced a speeded-up end to its combat role, days after an Afghan soldier killed four French soldiers and wounded more than a dozen others, some seriously.
Australia, another troop-contributing nation, was roiled early this month by a video on a Taliban-affiliated website that purported to show a fugitive Afghan soldier who had shot and seriously injured three Australian troops in southern Afghanistan in November boasting of his deed, and saying others in his unit had often spoken of their wish to carry out similar attacks.
"I had one mission on my mind: to kill foreigners and teach them a lesson," he said. "We are Muslims. We cannot accept foreigners."
Afghanistan's largest ethnic group — the Pashtuns, from which the Taliban movement is largely drawn — is underrepresented in the police and army, leading to simmering ethnic resentments within the ranks, as well as a tense relationship between Afghan troops and villagers in the mainly Pashtun south and east. Those are the regions where fighting has been most intense, and where Afghan soldiers from the north of Afghanistan — mainly ethnic Tajiks or Uzbeks — are considered almost as foreign as the NATO troops.
Potential Pashtun enlistees are more often turned away, recruiters said, a practice that may serve as something of a safeguard against inappropriate loyalties, but also breeds a sense of grievance.
"From the 'safe' parts of the country, we can take almost anyone," said Col. Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai of the Afghan national recruitment command. "But from the places where there are security problems, we would maybe take five or six out of 20 who applied."
Also worrisome to some local Afghan officials are plans to turn a number of particularly dangerous areas over to Afghan control sooner than initially planned. Several district leaders in areas to be handed over in coming months expressed strong misgivings about whether police and army units could confront the insurgents without Western help.
The No. 2 commander of the NATO force, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, acknowledged to reporters at the Pentagon this month that among American troops, there is a widespread negative view of the Afghans whom they serve alongside.
"Let's take an American soldier or a private. At times this private will tell me that they [Afghan forces], they're not that good," he said. "But a private is looking at it from the perspective of how he's trained, or the Marines are trained, and the standards are very different."
The ultimate size and role of Afghan forces are to be a prime topic at a NATO summit in May in Chicago. In advance, the allies — mindful of burgeoning costs in a difficult economic climate — are seeking consensus on a "sustainable" target size for Afghan forces, perhaps around 230,000.
With both the police and army still undergoing a rapid buildup that has doubled the security forces' size over the last 18 months, the notion of reining in that growth raises the specter of a large bloc of "armed unemployed" who might bear a grudge against the Afghan government if what they had believed would be a steady long-term job came to a premature end.
A report this month by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies contends that the Western military command "sharply downplays" structural problems, including a shortfall of trainers, rushed development, corrupt leadership and fealty to warlord figures.
Although Afghan army recruiters accumulate a voluminous paper file on each applicant, they appear to make little meaningful effort to assess the likelihood that a given man might eventually prove a danger to Western troops.
Col. Stanikzai, the recruiting official, acknowledged that basic questions go unasked, such as how potential recruits feel about the insurgency, or whether they consider themselves loyal to the Afghan government.
"Why would we ask them that?" he said. "Who would tell the truth?"
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Afghan talks to fail without all groups-Hizb-i-Islami
Reuters
By Qasim Nauman
Sun Feb 19, 2012
ISLAMABAD
Peace efforts in Afghanistan are likely to fail if they do not include all militant groups, a senior member of one of the country's most notorious insurgent factions said on Sunday.
"If any group is isolated or ignored, that group then becomes the centre of the resistance, and can cause problems," Ghairat Baheer, of Hizb-i-Islami, told Reuters in Islamabad.
"To bring instability or disturb the situation of Afghanistan is not difficult. It is very easy."
Hizb-i-Islami, which means Islamic Party, is a radical militant group with widespread national support in Afghanistan, shares some of the Afghan Taliban's anti-foreigner, anti-government aims, and wants to oust international forces.
The group, led by Afghan warlord and former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, claims to have thousands of fighters in its ranks, based mainly in Afghanistan's restive east, bordering Pakistan, and in the north.
The U.S. State Department lists Hekmatyar as a "terrorist" for supporting Taliban and al Qaeda attacks, but U.S. and Afghan officials have met with Hizb-i-Islami representatives in the last two months to help end the war, now in its eleventh year.
"There is communication, and there is negotiation going on between Hizb-i-Islami and the American and Afghan governments," Baheer, Hekmatyar's son-in-law.
Hekmatyar is a fierce rival of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and became a hero to many Afghans while leading mujahideen fighters against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
In the early 1990s, forces led by Hekmatyar opposed to the government of then-president Burhanuddin Rabbani took part in fighting in Kabul which is thought to have killed tens of thousands.
Hekmatyar left Afghanistan in the mid-1990s and his whereabouts have been unclear since then.
The Afghan Taliban announced last month it would open a political office in Qatar, suggesting the group may be willing to engage in negotiations that could give it government positions or official control over much of its historical southern heartland.
While the Taliban are the focus of media attention, there are a number of other militant organizations that want a say in Afghanistan's future.
They include the al-Qaeda linked Haqqani network, one of the most feared Afghan insurgent groups blamed for many high-profile bombings.
While the Haqqani group has pledged allegiance to the Taliban leadership, it also exercises significant operational independence.
Failure to appease these groups could bring prolonged instability, or even civil war, once NATO combat forces withdraw in 2014.
"There should be a comprehensive solution involving all parties and groups," said Baheer, a doctor by training.
Baheer, who was held in U.S. detention at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul, for six years until his 2008 release, said he had not seen enough progress in U.S.-Taliban talks to suggest they were any closer to formal negotiations.
"So far they have not been able to agree on even minor issues that could be taken as goodwill gestures. There's no official inauguration of the (Taliban) office, there is no release of prisoners and no one has been removed from the blacklist," he said.
"Things are stuck. We are also in a wait and see situation."
(Editing by Michael Georgy and Sanjeev Miglani)
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U.S. senators, Afghan leaders discuss parameters for long-term partnership
Washington Post
By Kevin Sieff
February 19 , 2012
KABUL
Five visiting U.S. senators took a hard line with Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, outlining the issues precluding a long-term partnership between the two nations and emphasizing the importance of American-led night raids as U.S. forces withdraw from the conflict.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he was encouraged by “significant military advances on the ground” but was unsympathetic to Karzai’s demand that the United States curb its use of night operations, which Karzai says result in dozens of civilian casualties each year. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), another member of the delegation, said that handing over detention operations to Afghans — another key Karzai demand — would “put American lives in danger.”
American officials have struggled for well over a year to craft a partnership agreement that would include a role for U.S. soldiers and diplomats beyond 2014, after NATO forces are due to leave Afghanistan. Karzai has said repeatedly that without an end to night raids and a handover of U.S.-run detention facilities, he won’t sign such an agreement.
McCain emphasized the importance of finalizing an agreement before a NATO summit in May, when the alliance is due to discuss the future of its involvement in Afghanistan.
“Absent that, I could see the possibility of real fissures developing amongst the alliance,” McCain said.
Graham said he would like the U.S. military to maintain a footprint in Afghanistan beyond 2014 “that would allow us to have a couple of bases with special forces units that would always provide the edge to the Afghan security forces against future insurgent attacks.”
Members of the delegation, which also included Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), met with both Karzai and Lt. Gen. John R. Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, as well as members of the country’s opposition parties.
McCain raised doubts about the viability of a political settlement with the Taliban, saying that President Obama’s announcement of a military drawdown has diminished the insurgency’s willingness to negotiate.
“When they think you’re leaving, obviously they’re not going to be serious about negotiations,” McCain said.
McCain also said he opposes the release of five Taliban prisoners as a part of those negotiations, a concession U.S. officials had discussed in early peace talks. A decision to release the men, now held at Guantanamo Bay, would have to be approved by Congress.
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Two Terrorist Groups Captured in Mazar, Police Chief Says
TOLOnews.com
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Two groups of terrorists who intended to disrupt Afghanistan's New Year celebrations in March were captured by Afghan security forces in northern Balkh province, local officials said on Sunday.
Afghan forces are fully prepared to provide security for the New Year - or Nawroz - celebrations which will happen on March 20, Provincial Police Chief General Ismatullah Alizai said.
Insurgents are trying to disrupt the celebrations but security forces will not allow them, he added.
"One 11-men group and one 6-men group that were preparing to disrupt the Nawroz celebrations in Balkh provinces were captured." General Alizai added.
Nawroz is a traditional celebration for Farsi speaking countries in Asia marking the first day of spring. It is the start of a new year according to the solar calendar.
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Harsh Afghan winter kills 40 children
AFP
19/02/2012
A harsh winter has killed almost 40 children in Afghanistan in the past month, most of them in refugee camps in Kabul with aid groups warning Sunday of more deaths as temperatures keep falling.
Twenty-four children lost their lives in camps on the outskirts of the capital which houses thousands of Afghans fleeing war and Taliban intimidation in southern Afghanistan.
Others died from cold in the central highlands, public health ministry spokesman Ghulam Sakhi Kargar Noorughli told AFP.
"Over this past one month we have 40 deaths recorded. All have died from cold and are mostly children," he said.
Afghanistan, a landlocked and mountainous country, has suffered its coldest winter in 15 years.
International children's charity Save the Children warned on Sunday that weather conditions were expected to worsen, threatening the lives of more children in the camps.
"Save the Children is warning that even more could die from cold in what is Afghanistan's worst winter for 15 years," the charity group said in a statement, adding that temperatures were expected to drop as low as -17 degrees centigrade.
"This has been a brutal winter and children have little to protect them from the biting cold," Bob Grabman, Save the Children's country director in Afghanistan, said.
"Many are trying to survive without decent shelter or blankets, without fuel, food, warm clothes or shoes," he added.
"At night the temperature falls dangerously low, threatening the lives of newborns and small children. It?s crucial we get urgent help to families so children are protected," Grabman added.
According to the charity about 20,000 people, fleeing insecurity caused by a Taliban-led insurgency, are living in more than 30 informal settlements in Kabul under extreme hardship. Most live in flimsy tents.
Despite the flood of billions of dollars in aid from the international community after the collapse of the Taliban Afghanistan remains among the poorest nations in the world.
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Stumbling Afghan peace talks need re-think: advisor
Reuters
By Rob Taylor and Hamid Shalizi
Sun Feb 19, 2012
KABUL
Afghan government efforts to bring the Taliban into peace talks are stumbling and bold steps were needed to ensure that a council spearheading the reconciliation process can win the trust of insurgents, said a presidential advisor Sunday.
Assadullah Wafa also expressed concern that Afghans, who have been subjected to one conflict after another, were losing hope that peace was possible from a process that so far has been shrouded in secrecy and conflicting views of likely success.
The government has made some contacts with the Taliban, who have made a strong comeback after being toppled by a U.S. invasion in 20 01, but there are no signs that full-fledged peace talks will happen anytime soon.
U.S. diplomats have also been seeking to broaden exploratory talks that began clandestinely in Germany in late 2010 after the Taliban offered to open a representative office in the Gulf emirate of Qatar, prompting demands for inclusion from Kabul.
"The talk about peace talks is just futile," said Wafa, an advisor to President Hamid Karzai and a former governor in some of Afghanistan's most volatile provinces.
Karzai set up a 70-member High Peace Council two years ago, with Wafa as a member, to try and negotiate an end to the war, now dragging into its eleventh year.
It is meant to represent all ethnic and political alliances in a bid to reach out to the Taliban leadership, as well as convince grassroots insurgent fighters to join the government.
Wafa, however, questioned its effectiveness, and said its wide makeup actually made it difficult for the government to reach out to militant groups.
"I have told President Karzai and he promised that there would be repair of the peace council. I am not afraid to speak out, but it doesn't much bear fruit. There must be a review," he told Reuters in an interview.
"I think genuine people aren't part of the peace council, or there are individuals who the Taliban fought in the past or some communist baqaya (remains) in the council, because of whom the Taliban aren't interested in talks."
SUSPICIOUS OF PAKISTAN
Wafa, one of the Afghan government's most experienced bureaucrats, said a reorganization of the council could help kick-start talks in Qatar, where the Taliban has set up an office to build contacts with the United States, or elsewhere.
The stakes are high. Failure to lure the Taliban to the negotiating table could mean perpetual instability, or even another civil war, once NATO combat troops withdraw in 2014.
Wafa's skepticism extends far beyond the High Peace Council.
He accused regional power Pakistan -- seen as critical to efforts to end the war -- of playing a double game, promising to work for peace while using the Taliban and other groups as proxies to advance its interests in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is known to want access to Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar, belonging so the so-called Quetta Shura, named after the Pakistani city where it is said to be based.
They would be the decision makers in any substantive peace negotiations.
"They (Pakistan) say one thing and do another. There is no doubt that Taliban leadership and Mullah Omar are in Quetta. They recruit, fund and people to create instability on this side," Wafa said.
"We have been deprived of peace in the country for the last 30 years and it is because of our neighbors."
Pakistan has consistently denied giving sanctuary to insurgents and denies the existence of any Quetta Shura, or leadership council.
Karzai told the Wall Street Journal last week there had been three-way "contacts" between U.S. officials and the Taliban, as well as his government, which the insurgents have previously refused to deal with, calling it a U.S. "puppet."
Wafa said while there had been infrequent and indirect Taliban contacts at a low level, he was "not aware where Karzai has made any contact," and large international bounties on Taliban leaders made reconciliation seem impossible.
"How can they become confident and ready for talks? I think the world does not want peace in the country. They just throw dust in the eyes," he said.
Wafa said part of his job was to hear complaint petitions from across the country and be a conduit to Karzai, and the message from the Afghan people was that they had begun to lose faith in the reconciliation drive.
(Editing by Michael Georgy and Sanjeev Miglani)
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Suicide car bomb hits Afghan police in Kandahar
AFP
20/02/2012
A suicide car bomber rammed the gate of a police station in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, unleashing a powerful blast that killed at least one policeman, officials said.
General Abdul Raziq, the provincial police chief, said the attacker detonated a bomb-laden sedan at the gate of Kandahar city's fourth district police station on Monday, killing at least one officer.
Another policeman and three civilians were injured, Jawed Faisal, the chief of the government-run Kandahar Media and Information Centre told AFP.
"It was a suicide car bombing that hit the gates of the police station. One police was martyred, one police was injured and three civilians were injured," Faisal said.
"The civilians were injured in a nearby house which was badly damaged," he told AFP.
There was no claim of responsibility for the attack but similar bombings in the past have been blamed on the Taliban, which is leading a deadly insurgency to bring down the US-backed government in Kabul.
Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban movement. Police and government security forces, trained by the US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan, have been prime targets of insurgents.
Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Siddiqi confirmed the attack but had no further details. "So far, we have one police death," Siddiqi told AFP.
Witnesses reported "an extremely powerful explosion".
The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until they were toppled by the 2001 US-led invasion for refusing to renounce Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Since then, remnants of the regime have orchestrated an increasingly deadly insurgency focused on suicide attacks and roadside bombings that frequently miss their military targets and cause civilian casualties.
The United States and the Taliban, which have opened a liaison office in the Gulf state of Qatar, have confirmed initial talks ahead of possible negotiations designed to end the 10-year conflict.
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Pakistan's Foreign Minister Flies to UK
TOLOnews.com
Monday, 20 February 2012
Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, flew to the UK on Sunday for a two-day official visit, Pakistani media reported.
Ms Khar will meet her British counterpart William Hague and other senior officials.
Talks will focus on the security situation in South Asia, particularly in Afghanistan.
Pakistani media said that Ms Khar will also seek London's help in stopping US drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas.
Ms Khar is also slated to address a political think-tank in London and deliver a speech at Oxford University at the invitation of the Oxford University Pakistan Society.
Earlier this month, the UK's foreign minister told parliament that Pakistan has a "crucial role and much to gain from improved stability in Afghanistan."
The US resumed drone strikes on January 10; they had been put on hold after a Nato air strike on two Pakistani checkpoints near Afghan border that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
Relations between Pakistan and the US became more strained after the incident.
Islamabad blocked Nato supply routes to Afghanistan via Pakistan and asked US officials to vacate Shamsi airbase which was used for US drone operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Dozens insurgents have been killed in drone operations since January 10.
US officials recently has said that eight of al-Qaeda's top 20 leaders were eliminated over the past year, mostly in US drone strikes.
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Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan enter into alliance
Examiner.com
By Michael McGuire United Nations Examiner
February 19, 2012
The presidents of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan on Friday signed an agreement for cooperation in security, economics and social policy.
The agreement, available on the Pakistani government's official website, states the three nations "pledged to enhance cooperation among the countries comprehensively for realizing the shared aspiration of their peoples for peace, security, stability and economic prosperity."
The nations agreed to "not to allow any threat emanating from their respective territories against each other. All parties agreed to commence trilateral consultations on an agreement in this regard."
The agreement "also mandated the interior/security ministers to develop a framework of trilateral cooperation particularly in the areas of counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics and border management within six months."
Representatives of the three countries will meet regularly, the statement said, with the heads of state agreeing to have another summit later this year.
Tension between Pakistan and the United States has increased in recent weeks.
On Saturday, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar denounced a draft resolution in the U.S. House of Represenatives on Balochsitan as "contrary to the principles of UN Charter and international law" and "against the very fundamentals of the long-standing Pakistan-US relations."
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, on Friday introduced a resolution siding with Balochsitan rebels in their battles with the Pakistani government.
"The Baluchi, like other nations of people, have an innate right to self-determination,” Rohrabacher said in a prepared statement. “The political and ethnic discrimination they suffer is tragic and made more so because America is financing and selling arms to their oppressors in Islamabad.”
"The Baluchistan province of Pakistan is rich in natural resources," Rohrabacher said, "but has been subjugated and exploited by Punjabi and Pashtun elites in Islamabad, leaving Baluchistan the country’s poorest province."
A frequent critic of Pakistan, Rohrabacher on Valentine's Day introduced a bill to honor Dr. Shakeel Afridi, a Pakistani who helped provide information to the United States on the whereabouts of Osama bin Ladin.
"Dr. Afridi has been arrested and held by the same Pakistani government that gave refuge to Bin Laden," Rohrabacher said. "Islamabad now threatens to try Dr. Afridi for treason for helping the United States. Pakistan’s Inquiry Commission on the Abbottabad Operation has called him a “national criminal,” punishable by death. Dr. Afridi continues to sacrifice for the United States and awarding him the Congressional Gold Medal is a fitting way to recognize his ongoing bravery."
A week earlier, Pakistan denounced the resumption of drone attacks in Pakistan as "unlawful and unacceptable."
(Mike McGuire is a former honorary national vice president of the World Federalist Association and a former member of the board of directors of its San Francisco chapter.
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US, Afghan Strategic Pact Talks Underway, Foreign Ministry Says
TOLOnews.com
Sunday, 19 February 2012
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday that talks between the US and Afghanistan about a long-term strategic agreement are under way.
"Talks have been resumed in Kabul and are going on nicely," Janan Musazai, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently said that he will not sign an Afghan-US pact unless Nato-led night operations are stopped. These have been a major source of conflict between President Karzai and foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The US military has defended night operations, calling them the most effective way to remove insurgents leaders from the ground. Nato has said it will continue night operations in close collaboration with Afghan forces.
Civilian casualties have also been a bone of contention for Mr Karzai. A Nato air assault killed eight young Afghans in Kapisa province last week.
The incident was condemned by President Karzai and the government appointed a delegation to visit the area to carry out an investigation into the incident.
Nato confirmed the deaths.
"Eight young Afghans lost their lives as a result of an air strike by coalition forces," said ISAF's head of communications, General Lewis Boone.
The UN recently said that the number of civilian fatalities had risen for the fifth consecutive year and said that 3,021 civilians were killed in 2011 alone.
Most of those deaths were caused by insurgents, it said, but civilian deaths due to Nato air strikes also rose 9 per cent to 187.
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Afghan Textbooks to Cut Out Much of the Country's Post-1973 History
Education has been one of Afghanistan's few bright spots since the Taliban fell, but the government is taking a big step backward.
The Atlantic
Feb 19 2012
I recently finished reading Joseph Ellis' excellent biography of George Washington, and was struck by a particularly poignant passage. As Washington's best efforts to strike an honorable deal with the Native Americans fail, he worries that the Indian side of the story would never make it into the history books, "They, poor wretches, have no press thro' which their grievances are related; and it is well known, that when one side only of a story is heard, and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it, insensibly." (p. 371) As the saying goes, winners write the history books - which is why the Afghan government's recent decision to eliminate any post-1973 events from its school texts is so worrisome. Since none of the major groups can agree on a basic set of facts, the country's new school books simply leave out the last four decades of events: no Soviet involvement, no brutal years of civil war, no rise of the Taliban, and no U.S. involvement. The intention - the hope - is that this know-nothing "de-politicized" approach will lessen tensions by avoiding controversy and division in schools, which since the 1970s have been ideological battlefields. It will "encourage brotherhood and unity," says Education Minister Farooq Wardak, optimistically. But the absence of modern history in the school books is more likely an indication of irreconcilable divisions in society rather than a portent of national reconciliation.
Education has actually been one of the bright spots in Afghanistan since the toppling of the Taliban. With fewer than half of boys - and just 3 percent of girls - enrolled in school in 2001, the starting point was admittedly wretched. But by 2008, net enrollment for boys and girls in primary school had increased to 68 percent and 42 percent respectively. Although the female literacy rate nationally was just 12 percent in 2008, literacy has risen to nearly 40 percent among young girls. Across the country, as I can personally attest from my visits there over the years, Afghans hunger for education; and polls show that upwards of 85 percent of the population supports equal educational opportunities for girls. Still, parts of the country - especially rural areas - seriously lag in education. In some provinces, especially in the south, female literacy is as low as 1 percent, and male literacy as low as 14 percent.
With American troops scheduled to withdraw in 2014, international attention to - and resources for - Afghanistan will inevitably wane. Whether it can continue to make educational gains will be a key determinant of the country's future. The Ministry of Education's goal is to get most of the approximately 4 million kids who are out of school into a classroom in the next three years. That means increasing school enrollment from its current level of 8.4 million to over 12 million - requiring a significant increase in teachers, training, and infrastructure. In a positive development, the Global Partnership for Education at the end of January pledged $55 million over three years to help develop Afghanistan's education system. (The history-less high school text books, by the way, were funded by the U.S. military through the Commander's Emergency Response Program.) Afghan education officials make the case that since the text books will be used even in Taliban-controlled areas, any inclusion of controversial material would be a non-starter. Yet, simply eliminating history seems unlikely to entice the Taliban to teach the official curriculum. There are too many reports of Taliban-controlled schools just replacing the national curriculum - which includes science and English - with their own focused solely on Islamic studies.
As I've noted before, I think the prospects for a negotiated peace in Afghanistan are dim. The inability of Afghans to agree on even a basic outline of their shared history over the past forty years is another indication of just how large the gaps are that divide.
This article originally appeared at CFR.org, an Atlantic partner site.
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In war-ravaged Afghanistan, combat sports reign
Reuters
By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Sayed Hassib
Monday, February 20, 2012
KABUL
The sounds produced by the three Afghan athletes going to the London summer Olympics are fierce: elongated wails ricochet off the chipped and dilapidated walls of the taekwondo centre, while leather smacks and slaps at the boxing gym.
In a country wrenched by decades of war, perhaps it is no surprise that all three, a taekwondo male duo including Beijing bronze medallist Rohullah Nikpai, and teenage female boxer Sadaf Rahimi, followed fighting sports.
They were born into conflict that still rages, and chronic insecurity and poverty mean they train in spartan spaces with little financial support, and currently freezing cold in the country's worst winter for 30 years.
"The difference between me and others is I want to show other countries that an Afghan girl can fight," 17-year-old Rahimi told Reuters, squinting from a protective facemask that pinches her cheeks and black kohl-lined eyes.
Like Nikpai, Rahimi and her family fled to neighbouring Iran to escape the violence and brutal oppression of the Taliban, who were toppled just over a decade ago.
The austere Islamist group had publicly stoned women to death for charges of adultery at the Ghazi stadium, where Rahimi, her two sisters and the rest of the country's first team of female boxers, set up in 2007, practice today.
Her muscular shoulders rippling as she readies to throw punches at her coach, Rahimi said she feared the Taliban, who banned women from education, sports and most work, would regain a share in power through early talks with Afghan and U.S. officials aimed at ending the NATO-led war.
"I hope the Taliban don't come back and take over," she said, wincing and starting to untie pink shoelaces over her knuckles, used instead of hard-to-get strapping. "But if they do, I urge them to let women engage in sports and go to school".
Coach Mohammad Saber Sharifi, a former professional boxer and advocate of Afghan women's rights, especially through sport, said Rahimi had been granted a wild card to compete at the Olympics, meaning she can sidestep further qualifying rounds.
She will soon leave Kabul's rutted and snowbound streets for London to train for the Olympics, where women's boxing is debuting as a sport, he said.
"NO PROPER ELECTRICITY"
On the other side of Kabul from Ghazi stadium, in an equally barren practice space, 24-year-old Nikpai and fellow taekwondo Olympic contender Nesar Ahmad Bahawi kick and punch in preparation for competition at London's ExCel centre in August.
Wearing red chest and back guards made from the material used in bullet-proof vests, the pair, who both recently qualified for the Games in Bangkok, make high-pitched screeches as they take aim, typical of the sport.
But despite officially qualifying and winning Afghanistan's first Olympic medal at Beijing four years ago, Nikpai bemoaned the lack of support given to sport in his country.
"Nesar and I don't have a good place to train, facilities, or even a regular transport system and proper electricity," he said, his breath steaming in the frigid air of the centre, whose small heater did little to combat the frozen white landscape outside.
Poor conditions are not limited to taekwondo, whose national team members receive a miserly monthly stipend of between $10-$14. Boxing coach Sharifi, whose team have never trained in a ring, said tiny sporting budgets severely limit their success.
"We can't really compare ourselves to the world," said Nikpai, who was lured to taekwondo after watching hours of action films as a refugee in Iran. He returned to Kabul in 2004.
Nikpai received a hero's welcome upon his return from Beijing and was summoned to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who presented him with a brand new flat, money and a car.
The head of the Afghan Olympic Committee, General Mohammad Zahir Akhbar, said he hopes more athletes in wrestling, judo and athletics will qualify for the Games in London.
"We are war-torn, our athletes face economic and security problems, but we are aiming for medals," Akhbar told Reuters.
First-time Olympian Bahawi, who took up taekwondo at the behest of his family because he kept kicking his friends, said triumph at international competitions could be a way to lift security at home.
"Sport brings a message of peace and stability in the country," said the tall 25-year-old from the country's eastern Kapisa province before knocking flat a team mate with two quick kicks on his side.
Afghan coach Bashir Taraki, who trains them alongside Korea's Min Sin-hak, downplayed the attraction to the fighting aspect of the Korean martial art, saying: "I think they are more into taekwondo's discipline than its fighting side".
(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman, Editing by Rob Taylor)
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In Kabul, First Hints Of Reconciliation Efforts
NPR
February 19, 2012
Afghan President Hamid Karzai says his government is involved in direct talks with the Taliban and the U.S., but the Taliban denies it. Is the Taliban really willing to engage in reconciliation? Host Rachel Martin speaks with NPR's Quil Lawrence in Kabul.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For more now on the promise and pitfalls of a political solution in Afghanistan, we turn to Quil Lawrence, NPR's Kabul bureau chief.
Hi, Quil.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Hi, Rachel.
MARTIN: So, we just heard Ambassador Marc Grossman say that Afghanistan is a much different place than it was a decade ago; that women have far more rights than they did under the Taliban; that the number of kids in school now is exponentially higher than it has ever been; and that the country is unlikely to shift back to the way things were under Taliban rule.
Our Afghans so confident that this is the case?
LAWRENCE: I think most Afghans would agree with the first part of that statement. Certainly women's rights and development and health and children in school and number of schools is much, much better. That said, the insurgency in the countryside has been on an upward swing for most of the last five years.
Whether it's impossible for things to shift back, I think if you sit down and talk with Afghans, they'll tell you it seems very difficult that the Taliban should be able to retake areas like Kabul, which have grown enormously - all of the urban areas. At the same time, they'll tell me that's their number one fear. And I know many Afghans think this year, more than any year in the past, who are immigrating, who are trying to find a way out of the country, they're afraid that the Taliban is a stronger than the Karzai government that has been set up.
MARTIN: Does that mean, Quil, that Afghans really can't see a role for the Taliban in some kind of negotiated peace? Does the very idea that the Afghan government would reconcile with the Taliban, does that make them uneasy?
LAWRENCE: It makes them uneasy because they don't know what's going on. People recognize here that the Taliban are not some foreign force; they're organic to Afghanistan. Much of the south, especially in the rural areas, they live in a way that is not much different from the way the Taliban would rule.
But they're afraid that the peace deal going on might be giving away too many concessions to the Taliban without consulting them, especially in the north areas that oppose the Taliban and were repressed under the Taliban. And they're very worried that someone might sign a deal and that they won't have had any say in it, and that the terms will be unacceptable.
MARTIN: This past week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai did confirm that his government is involved in direct talks with the Taliban and the United States on some kind of reconciliation. The Taliban then shot this down publicly, said it's not happening.
Quil, when Afghans talk about what a peaceful reconciliation would look like, how do they describe it?
LAWRENCE: Well, many Afghans are willing to see the Taliban or elements of the Taliban come into a government as long as they respect the gains that have been made. Some of them actually looking at the corruption that they see in President Karzai's government are actively preferring the law and order that they had under the Taliban. But they don't want to go back to what some of them called the dark ages of the Taliban, when there was no television and no mobile phones and no contact with the outside world.
They're willing to let the Taliban back into the tent. Their main question is whether the Taliban have any intention of joining some sort of a pluralistic process. Or whether they're intent on taking over the country, which is what they did last time and what many of their statements seem to suggest.
MARTIN: NPR's Quil Lawrence in Kabul. Thanks so much, Quil.
LAWRENCE: Thank you, Rachel.
MARTIN: You're listening to NPR News.
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Tensions Continue in Afghan Parliament
TOLOnews.com
By Saleha Sadat
Sunday, 19 February 2012
Tensions in Afghan House of Representatives continued on Sunday, a day after MPs summoned ministers of interior and finance over what was described as incompetence in the ministries.
The Minister of Interior, Besmellah Mohammadi and Finance Minister Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal, appeared before the House of Representatives on Saturday.
On Staurday Mr Mohammadi was questioned about the recent Nato air strike that killed 8 Afghan kids in Kapisa province, while Mr Zakhilwal answered question on budget related issues.
Then the House Speaker asked MPs to raise their cards to find out if they were satisfied with the answers given by the ministers, and voting ended with majority of green cards raised.
But on Sunday, some MPs strongly reacted to the result of Saturday's summon and alleged that some MPs had been bribed.
"I feel ashamed before the people who voted to me to become a member of parliament," Sahera Sharif, representative of Khost in Afghan parliament, said.
Some MPs also called on the House Speaker Abdul Rauf Ebrahimi to step down and stressed that names of those who have been bribed should be disclosed.
"If you cannot manage the house, please resign," Hamida, representative of Kandahar in Afghan parliament, said.
It comes as Finance Minister, Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal, on Saturday said that the major achievement of the ministry has been to increase government incomes.
He also said that nearly 5 million Afghanis was saved from the normal budget this year.
The Interior Minister said that there has been a major decrease in civilian casualties.
He blamed foreign troops for the death of 8 Afghan children in Kapisa province.
"We are still investigating, if our police is guilty in the incident, they will be punished." Interior Minister Besmellah Mohammadi told MPs.
Mr Mohammadi also called the role of Afghan local police very important in maintaining security, citing its success in Baghlan and Paktika provinces.
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Readers Write: Wind turbines bad for earth, people; wrong US motives in Afghanistan
Letters to the editor for the weekly print issue of February 20, 2012: One reader argues that large industrial wind turbines are inefficient, harmful to communities, and non-eco-friendly. Another sees no validation for the US staying in Afghanistan for economic reasons and influence.
Christian Science Monitor
February 20, 2012
'Wind farms': old behemoths
Regarding the Jan. 30 cover story, "Wind power: clean but mean?": Abandoned industrial-sized wind turbines already litter the globe.
To call them "wind farms" attempts to put a pastoral face on a decidedly industrial entity.
Filled with rare earth minerals mined in the most non-eco-friendly manner in China, these 500-foot-tall behemoths are inefficient to run, expensive to repair, and frequently abandoned when their tax credit has been captured by the corporation or municipality responsible for them.
These turbines require a constant input of electricity from other sources to keep the blades turning in times of low wind.
Their effect on the cultures of the developing world mirrors that felt by picturesque New England communities, populated by environmentally conscious citizens, frequently dependent on tourism and urban weekend homeowners.
No one escapes the city to gaze at a wind farm on fields that used to be inhabited by cows or woods once home to a fragile population of bald eagles.
In many states a "siting council" makes all decisions about where these wind farms will go, with no regard to local regulations or opposition.
One council member hoping to cash in on a career as a "consultant to the energy industry" can steer a decision away from the science (negative health outcomes from vibration, flicker, flying ice) and toward the illusion of clean technology and a cutting-edge solution for oil independence.
In fact, these monster wind turbines are the ghosts of an old technology. They are akin to using a giant, room-sized computer with minimal capacity or speed instead of the latest pocket-sized supercomputer.
Ground-level and roof-mounted devices exceed these large turbines in both output and efficiency.
Roy E. Hitt Jr., MD
Andrea C. Hitt
Winchester Center, Conn. US presence in Afghanistan
I disagree with Alexander Benard's Jan. 23 opinion piece, "Leave Afghanistan, forfeit a region."
He argues that the United States should maintain a military presence in Afghanistan in order to counter Russia's and China's influences in the region and to make sure that the region's "important natural resources" are not "closed to the US."
I believe that the only acceptable reason to take life is in order to protect life. I find it morally repugnant to wage war and occupy a country for economic reasons.
Perpetuating colonialism is not a good reason for US soldiers to stay in Afghanistan.
Neith Little
Ithaca, N.Y.
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Former Afghan FM: US Seeking to Legitimize Taliban through Negotiations
Fars News Agency
February 19, 2012
TEHRAN
A prominent Afghan opposition figure said that the US is seeking to legitimize the Taliban through holding negotiations with the belligerent group, but meantime underlined that the US has failed to attain its goal.
"… No doubt the Taliban is eager to negotiate with the US since the group sees the talks a positive step towards its legitimacy," former Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah told FNA.
He said that some foreign countries have taken advantage and get involved in Afghan peace talks after the Afghan government failed to encourage the Taliban to hold talks with the central government within the geographical borders of Afghanistan.
In January, first Vice-Speaker of the Afghan Senate Mohammad Alam Izadyar criticized the secret talks between the US and the Taliban, and stated that the so-called Afghan Peace Talks lack "transparency".
"Details of the Afghan peace talks should not be hidden from the people of the country," Izadyar told Afghanistan TV at the time.
Taliban announced at the time that they had struck a deal to open a political office in Qatar that could allow for direct negotiations.
In a statement, Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said that along with a preliminary deal to set up the office in Qatar, the group was asking that Taliban detainees held at the American prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be released.
Some analysts are skeptical of the prospects for meaningful peace negotiations with the Taliban.
The developments came as Pakistani media revealed last week that the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has removed the name of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar from the list of "most wanted terrorists."
The report came following Washington's secret meetings with the Taliban after one decade of war. US officials have held several meetings with representatives of the Afghan Taliban leader, headed by Tayyib Agha, in Germany and Qatar over the past months.
During the meetings, the US and Taliban negotiators reached a deal to transfer five Taliban militants, who are under custody in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, to Qatar. The removal of Mullah Omar's name from the terror list comes after the prisoner deal.
The founder of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, has been in hiding since the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
Washington removed Mullah Omar's name despite its continued allegations that the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden were behind the September, 11 attacks in the US. Mullah Omar was Bin Laden's staunchest ally and most intimate friend.
The United States invaded Afghanistan 10 years ago under the pretext of eradicating the Taliban, but its failure has forced Washington to turn to negotiation with militants.
The US government has planned new round of talks with the Taliban in early 2012.
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Afghan refugees caught between Iran and a hard place
AFP
20/02/2012
HERAT
Abdullah was left catatonic and almost mute by the electric shocks meted out to him by Iranian police before they bussed him to the border and sent him back to Afghanistan.
His arms marked with slashes of red paint to identify him as a deportee, the 18-year-old lies on a bed of cushions in an otherwise bare hut that has become his temporary home, uttering only his name and that of his home province Tahir.
“He was deported from Iran, we don’t know what’s wrong. Sometimes he speaks,” says one UN worker tasked with giving him board until aid workers can find his family to send him home. “We have a lot of cases like this.”
Up to three million Afghan refugees settled in Iran during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, making Tehran responsible for one of the largest refugee populations in the world.
At first Afghans were permitted to live in their neighbouring country with ease, with women in particular enjoying a higher social status as well as better education, work opportunities and security.
But since the 1990s Tehran has clamped down on the refugees, tightening rules that allow Afghans to pursue education and work, and in 2007 launching a massive deportation programme that sent home up to half a million.
Some say that the size of the exodus was politically orchestrated — used as a tool to exert pressure on the Western-backed government in Kabul to take a more anti-Western stance.
“Whenever Afghanistan’s policies displease Tehran, the Iranian government threatens to expel all Afghans living in Iran,” wrote Ahmad Majidyar and Ali Alfoneh in a 2010 report on the issue for American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a right-wing US think tank.
“Tehran understands that the fragile Afghan government lacks the capacity to absorb a large number of returnees under current security and economic conditions.”
One million Afghan refugees now officially live in Iran, with estimates of up to another one million living there illegally, more than 10 years after US troops invaded Afghanistan and brought down the Taliban regime.
According to figures compiled by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), a total of 18,152 Afghan refugees returned from Iran in 2011, well over double the number in the previous year.
Iran recently lent its approval, along with Afghanistan and Pakistan, to a new UN strategy designed to help Afghans who return, trying to focus on more sustainable reintegration to stop them becoming destitute.
But in western Afghanistan, tales of mistreatment of Afghan refugees by Iranian authorities abound — as do reports of deportees being forced to pay bribes to escape an apparently brutally run detention centre across the border.
Hamidullah Hatibi, who runs the provincial refugee agency in Herat, says that last year one man beaten by Iranian authorities succumbed to his wounds once he had crossed the border, while another had a mental breakdown.
“Broken hands, arms, beaten bodies — there are a lot. The Iranian government treats the refugees badly and these people cannot go back,” he said, adding that the government relies on UN aid to help the refugees return home.
Several calls to the Iranian embassy in Kabul for comment went unanswered.
The ebb and flow of Afghans across their western border in search of work and an escape from their restive homeland continues — the refugees caught between an expensive and insecure life in Iran, or continued war at home.
Many are deported, but the majority are forced to return by increased economic hardship and restricted living conditions in Iran.
Refugees, often in families with six or seven children, must pay annual school fees of up to $75 per child, despite earning a subsistence wage of $10 per day.
“It pays for just one chicken,” said father-of-five Yusuf Zeyiey, 48, who decided to return to Afghanistan after nine years living in Iran.
He cannot go to his home province of Jowzjan where there is no work and the threat of the Taliban insurgency — instead he will go to northern Mazar city and try to pick up construction work that pays $20 per day.
“It was just too expensive. We had problems with rent, food, school. All these problems caused us to come back,” he said.
Stringent economic conditions are only likely to get worse for refugees living in Iran as the US and EU tighten sanctions to try to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear programme.
And Afghanistan’s western lands have long-been considered an extension of Iranian territory by the authoritarian neighbouring regime.
But despite the difficulties, there is still high demand for a permit to live and work in Iran: lines snake outside the Iranian consulate in Herat and crowds jostle for passports outside the provincial refugee ministry.
Some say they seek refuge from war — others claim there are no jobs to be found in Afghanistan. All of those waiting outside the ministry earlier this month claimed they were being forced to pay officials bribes for a passport.
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