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| Afghanistan |
| 'Pak-Afghan jirga may fail to pacify Taliban insurgents' |
| 2007-05-08 |
| A senior member of the Pak-Afghan Peace Jirga Commission has said that two meetings of 700 delegates from Pakistan and Afghanistan may not succeed against the increasing Taliban-linked insurgency in Afghanistan. “I do not have much hope for success,” said Rustam Shah Mohmand, adviser to Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao Khan, who is heading the Pakistani commission in the jirga. The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed on May 4 to hold their first joint jirga in the first week of August in Afghanistan, which would be followed by another one in Pakistan. The two countries recently decided to try using the traditional tribal system to combat the Taliban. President Pervez Musharraf and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai agreed to the idea during their joint meeting with US President George W Bush in September last year. Mohmand, former ambassador to Afghanistan, told Daily Times after his return from Kabul where arrangements for the first jirga were finalised, that the decisions at the jirgas would be ‘more or less binding’ on the two governments. “These types of questions boggle the mind,” he said when asked if Kabul would agree to withdraw US and NATO forces from Afghanistan if the jirga demanded it. He said Pakistan had finalised the names of jirga attendees and they included clerics, members of parliament, tribal elders and people from the Sindh province. “Opposition members are also included,” he added. Security concerns could reduce the delegate strength, the adviser said. He said the final decision would be taken in the last meeting on the matter during the last week of May in Islamabad. The jirga delegates have been instructed to avoid indulging in blaming each other according to rules of engagement, said Mohmand. “They can only try to provide positive suggestions.” “A neutral mediatory jirga, if the joint jirga accepts, will open talks with people [referring to Taliban] currently opposing the present Afghanistan government,” Mohmand said. He said the mediatory jirga would not include government representatives and only tribal elders would be selected. They can then proceed to overturn those silly elections they had a year or two ago. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #3 Thank you, Frank, for that homage to multi-culturalism..... (/snark) |
| Posted by: Varmint Thrusorong8023 2007-05-08 17:05 |
| #2 The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed on May 4 to hold their first joint jirga in the first week of August in Afghanistan, which would be followed by another one in Pakistan a circle-jirga |
| Posted by: Frank G 2007-05-08 09:43 |
| #1 WORLDNEWS > ISLAMABAD considering deportation of Afghan illegals. Afghanis doing a NORTH KOREA and may just well demand to stay as oposed to being sent back, even iff it means being treated as aliens??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-05-08 01:12 |