HAMID KARZAI has held face-to-face talks with active insurgents representing one of the most violent rebel leaders operating in Afghanistan, the Afghan president’s office said yesterday.
The unprecedented meeting took place in Kabul between Mr Karzai and top-level officials, who discussed a peace proposal from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Islamist warlord who controls the militant wing of the Hezb-i-Islami organisation from its sanctuary in Pakistan.
According to the organisation’s spokesman, Haroun Zarghoun, the delegates presented a plan for foreign troops to start withdrawing from Afghanistan as early as July. Six months after that, an interim government would be appointed and preparations made for fresh elections.
“It sounds like an opening position, because they know these are demands that will not be granted,” said independent analyst Matt Waldman.
Nonetheless, it was remarkable that such senior insurgent leaders were allowed to move freely around Kabul to attend the meeting with Mr Karzai.
Mr Hekmatyar’s representatives have participated in informal talks before, including a meeting in the Maldives, but it is not thought Mr Karzai has taken part in such discussions himself. Usually the president is represented by members of his national security council or by his brother Qayoum Karzai, a private citizen who plays a leading part in reconciliation policy.
Leading the delegation was Mr Hekmatyar’s deputy, Qutbuddin Helal, and it also included his son-in-law and former spokesman.
A spokesman for the movement said they had full authority to speak on behalf of Mr Hekmatyar and they also planned to meet other important Afghan leaders, including former mujahideen leaders Abdul Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani, as well as foreign ambassadors.
A spokesman for the British embassy said he was not aware of such a meeting but the UK backed peace talks as long as they were led by the Afghan government.
The development is likely to please the British government, which wants to see immediate steps towards a political settlement with insurgent leaders.
However, the US is demanding a more gradual approach in the hopes that if the extra 30,000 troops sent to Afghanistan this year chalk up major battlefield successes then insurgent leaders will be willing to be more flexible in their demands.
Mr Waldman said the latest entreaties from one of Afghanistan’s most notorious warlords would further heighten divisions between the US and its main allies.
Hezb-i-Islami is allied to the Taliban and is dominant in the east of the country. Over the years it has claimed responsibility for some of the most deadly and spectacular attacks on Kabul, including an attempt to assassinate Mr Karzai during a military parade in 2008.
Although Mr Hekmatyar has a reputation as an unbending radical Islamist, in recent months it has been rumoured that he is keen to strike a powersharing peace deal with the government.
Some analysts have suggested that the overture from Mr Hekmatyar could indicate that Hezb-i-Islami’s alliance with the Taliban movement led by Mullah Omar could be fraying.
Two weeks ago the two groups clashed in Baghlan province, leading large numbers of Hezb-i-Islami fighters to defect to the government.
Mr Hekmatyar is one of the most controversial of the former mujahideen leaders who fought against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He served as prime minister of the country after the Moscow-backed government in Kabul fell in 1992.
Mr Karzai has already moved to accommodate powerful members of Hezb-i-Islami, which operates legally as a party and is represented by MPs and provincial governors. – (Guardian service)
