Pakistan must play bigger Afghanistan role -Merkel
Pakistan should be more closely involved in solving the Afghan
conflict, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a newspaper interview
due to be published on Sunday.
“There will be no peace in this region unless Pakistan carries its
share of responsibility,” Merkel told German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
“For a comprehensive solution, we need a much greater involvement of
Afghan authorities and the inclusion of neighbouring countries, in
particular Pakistan.”
Pakistan’s involvement has been limited because after decades of
involvement in Afghan affairs, Pakistan intelligence is viewed with deep
suspicion by both Kabul and the Taliban.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who this week invited the Taliban’s
leaders to a peace council as part of efforts to end years of fighting,
uses the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan as a go-between with
insurgents.
In an interview with news magazine Der Spiegel, he said it was
important for Afghanistan’s neighbours and the international community
to be involved in an Afghan plan to reintegrate rank-and-file Taliban
fighters.
“(The political leaders of the Taliban) have their own relations to
other countries, to al Qaeda and other terror networks,” Karzai said.
“Therefore our neighbours and the international community have to
also participate in the reconciliation process.”
Karzai said it was an “indispensable precondition” for insurgents to
break off all contacts with terrorist networks in order to qualify for
the new reintegration programme.
Germany has said it is committed to boosting troop levels in
Afghanistan and nearly doubling civilian aid to create the conditions to
start a withdrawal from next year.
But Merkel has refused to set a date for the withdrawal of troops,
saying this could encourage the Taliban to lay low for a while and then
launch a big attack.
“A withdrawal without reaching our goals and a unilateral German pull
out would not be a handover of responsibility but an act of
irresponsibility,” she said. |
