Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Monday, April 29th, 2024

Taliban, HIA Call Bonn Summit A Failure

Taliban, HIA Call  Bonn Summit A Failure

KABUL - Key insurgent groups -- the Taliban and 'Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) -- on Tuesday said the Bonn Conference was pointless and that it did not discuss any significant issue.
The meeting concluded yesterday, with delegates from more than 115 countries and international organizations promising to keep supporting Afghanistan for another decade beyond 2014, when all foreign troops will leave the country.

Global political, economic and military assistance to Afghanistan beyond 2014, security transition, strategic cooperation, regional cooperation and the reconciliation process were high on agenda at the meeting.

"Westerners spent a lot of time arranging the conference to divert people's attention from important issues facing Afghanistan," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

The participants repeated speeches they had made in the first Bonn summit, he alleged, saying the event was vainly projected by foreign media as a potential source of finding solution to problems.
"No of the participants said what the people of Afghanistan want; instead they repeated their so-called pledges," Mujahid said.

The HIA, led by former jihadi leader, Gulbadin Hekmatyar, also rejected the decisions made at the conference. "HIA was against the conference prior to its holding. The participants were not real Afghan representatives," a spokesman for the group said.

Aid promises were made at a time when administrative corruption in Afghanistan had reached its peak, Haroon Zarghoon said. Billions of dollars provided in aid had been wasted, he claimed.
The only solution to the imbroglio was the withdrawal of foreigners from the country, he said, suggesting a transitional government be set up and a free and fair election held.