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Afghan Peace Conference postponed by Pakistan until after Eid-ul-Azha (Video and Text)

ISLAMABAD: Foreign Office here has announced that the 3-day Afghan Peace Conference scheduled to be held here from 17th till 19th of July 2021 has been postponed until after Eid-ul-Azha. 

According to savants at the helm of affairs Afghan Govt had refused to send its delegation for the huddle and President Ashraf Ghani had asked PM Imran Khan to cancel the said rendezvous that was supposed to be attended some forty Afghan politicians including Abdullah Abdullah, Karim Khalili, Mohammad Younus Qanooni, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Salahuddin Rabbani, Ismail Khan, Ata Mohammad Noor, Sayed Hamed Gailani, Sayed Eshaq Gailani, Batur Dostum and Mirwais Yasini and others to reach a political consensus on the deteriorating state of affairs in Afghanistan.

Interestingly, it was President Ashraf Ghani who had suggested holding such meeting at the Capital of Pakistan to be attended by both Afghan and Taliban delegations.

There could be four reasons of cancelling the event:

i) The speech of Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday 16th of July (at Int’l Conference on South Asia-Central Asia Regional Connectivity-Challenges and Opportunities held at Tashkant) during which he extempore addressing the Afghan President expressed his disappointment over the insinuation by Ashraf Ghani apropos Pakistan’s negative role in the Afghan peace process.

“President Ghani (who happened to be in the conference) let me just say that the country that will be most affected by turmoil in Afghanistan is Pakistan. Pakistan suffered 70,000 casualties in the last 15 years. The last thing Pakistan wants is more conflict,” PM said adding that Pakistan’s economy was recovering after going through a difficult phase. He further said the last thing Pakistan wanted was turbulence in Afghanistan.

ii) Taliban were not ready to attend the Conference;

iii) Qatar did not want peace talks to be shifted to Islamabad from Doha;

iv) An Afghan delegation had already departed for Doha for such parleys.

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M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.