An incomplete Pakistani delegation will leave for Kabul today (Wednesday) on chartered flights from Peshawar and Quetta to attend a three-day peace jirga there with pessimism upstaging optimism about the event's success. Nominated delegates from North and South Waziristan refused to undertake the journey for various reasons, while Opposition leader in the National Assembly Maulana Fazlur Rehman and his Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam excused themselves from visiting Kabul for the jirga.The Pakistani delegation will leave for Kabul early on Wednesday where President General Pervez Musharraf and the host, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, will jointly inaugurate the jirga being held to address two serious issues concerning the two countries: improving bilateral relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan and a clear policy to "deny sanctuaries, training and financing to terrorist elements" on each other's soil.
Seven working committees will be formed in the first session of Day Two and each committee will have 100 members, 50 from each side, according to the schedule of the jirga seen by Daily Times. "Each committee will deal with a separate issue," the schedule said. There are seven items to be discussed during the three-day event. The delegates will then prepare a joint declaration and announce their suggestions on the third day of the jirga.
Like their Pakistani counterparts, Afghan officials in Kabul are under the impression that the jirga is unlikely to end with significant results as "almost all (Pakistani delegation) members have been chosen by the Inter-Services Intelligence agency". "There is a general impression among the Afghan officials that we should not attach high hopes with the jirga as the Pakistani delegation members are ISI-selected and they will not speak out as openly as one may hope," a local journalist in Kabul said.
He said that most of the Afghan officials were "suffering from ISI phobia" and "both Pakistan and Afghanistan hold a great deal of suspicion about each. How can one expect good results in such an environment?"