President Karzai has continued to welcome Taliban warmly for the peace talks. It is really important for the lasting peace in Afghanistan that Taliban must be brought to negotiation table and some sort of agreement should be reached with them. However, the solution does not lie in keeping on insisting that Taliban are 'brothers'. To reach to a comprehensive agreement with Taliban, Afghan presidential office needs to have a proper strategy. This strategy should never sacrifice the gains that have been achieved in the last decade and should never appreciate the reversal of Afghan society to a Taliban-like scenario.
In a press conference in Kabul on Thursday, July 12, President Karzai reiterated his open invitation to Taliban to leave violence and come and join Afghan politics. He said that he was ready to welcome all those Afghans who weren't the puppets of others and had issues with Afghan government at home. He even invited Mullah Omar to come to any part of Afghanistan and open a political office, contest elections and be a part of normal political process. It can be noticed that President Karzai gets over-emotional while talking about talks with Taliban.
The political processes and achievements mostly respect prudence and proper planning and execution of the planned strategies. All the Afghans want that Mullah Omar should shun violence and be a part of normal political process, but for that to happen, honest, sensible and dedicated practical efforts are needed, not just the over-excited invitations.
It is a crystal clear fact that Afghan government has not been able to deal with the reconciliation process appropriately. The proof lies in the present scenario when all the parties to the conflict lie much distant from one another. Though on most of the occasions the government officials have exaggerated about the process, there have been various controversies and deficiencies that have been highlighted every now and then by different intellectuals, writers and politicians since the very beginning of the peace negotiations with Taliban.
The challenge is not to bring Taliban to the negotiation table, the true challenge is to manage a negotiation process that can result into sustainable peace and tranquility in the country and that can promise a better and tranquil future for the generations to come.
The efforts of Afghan government, though claimed to be very much inclusive, have proved to be very meager. High Peace Council (HPC) that was established to shoulder the important responsibility of tackling the peace talks with Taliban has not been able to produce tangible outcomes. It has, rather, faced serious blows itself by terrorism.
The current process of reconciliation has made the people of Afghanistan very much pessimistic about their future. Though very recently, in Tokyo Conference the international community once again repeated its committed support to Afghanistan, the prospects that a peaceful and tranquil future for Afghanistan can be achieved still remain gloomy.
Even if the Taliban are ready to participate in the negotiations, the current setup for talks does not fulfill the requirements of a true and proper effort as it won't be able to solve the basic issues that are dominating the Afghan socio-political scenario.
Moreover, there are some very basic deficiencies within the Afghan political setup that need to be addressed before proceeding with the reconciliation process. Among them the need for a parliamentary form of government, with true representation and authority to the elected members of parliament and less authoritative rule of the President is the most dominant one. Unless such basic issues are solved, any sort of reconciliation with Taliban may not yield satisfactory result and may ultimately invite an era of chaos and civil war.