Neighbor States Meet On Helping Foster Afghan Stability

Turkey's President Abdullah Gul (center) with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts, Hamid Karzai (left) and Asif Ali Zardari in Istanbul.
January 26, 2010
(RFE/RL) --- Leaders and senior officials from Afghanistan and its neighboring countries met today in the Turkish city of Istanbul for talks on how to help Afghanistan achieve stability and security.

The meeting took place in the diplomatic run-up to a big conference on January 28 in London on the country's future.

The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, were present, together with officials from Iran, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and China, all of which share common borders with Afghanistan.

Hosted by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, the meeting included observers representing the United States, Britain, and Russia.

Few details have been disclosed about the talks, but they were likely to range across issues of increased cooperation with Afghanistan, to help it toward stability. The key relationship is between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which now share a common threat from Taliban insurgencies.

Kabul remains suspicious of Islamabad's motives in apparently not wanting to dislodge the Afghan Taliban, who are believed to use the Pakistani northwest frontier as a haven from the fighting in Afghanistan. Diplomats see this ambivalence as stemming from the possibility that the Pakistanis may want to use the Afghan Taliban in future -- as in the past -- to counter Indian influence on Kabul.

Taliban Reconciliation

The neighborhood meeting follows the January 25 summit of Karzai, Zardari, and Turkey's Abdullah Gul. At that meeting, Karzai's plan to draw moderate Taliban elements into reconciliation with his government was discussed.

Karzai said after the summit that the plan has international and regional support, including "the backing of our partners, particularly the United States and Europe. It also has greater recognition within our neighborhood."

In Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs noted that reconciliation schemes had worked with various factions in Iraq. Gibbs said the United States is open to a similar path in Afghanistan to that in Iraq -- provided that the factions involved accept the Afghan Constitution, renounce violence, and publicly break with groups that advocate violence.

Speaking at the same news conference as Karzai, Zardari spoke in favor of reconciliation as opposed to open-ended military action.

"No democratic government or no democratic party can talk about only war. We have to talk about peace," Zardari said.

"And if there are any people who are reconcilable, or people who want to give up their way of life, democracy always welcomes them back."

An Afghan spokesman said Karzai welcomed the readiness of the United Nations to consider a proposal from his government to remove some Taliban names from its blacklist, making them available for negotiations.

Source:rferl.org/