We don’t Have Same Regional Consensus we had in Bonn Process: Stanekzai

Head of the Afghan government’s negotiating team M. Masoum Stanekzai says the current Afghan peace process does not have the same regional consensus it had in Bonn process.

Addressing an event at the Afghan institute for strategic studies in capital Kabul on Wednesday, Masoum Stanekzai, head of the government’s negotiating team said that one reason for more than 40 years of conflict in Afghanistan is the monopoly of power in the governments coming one after another.
“The geo-strategic location of Afghanistan has turned the country into a field of competition between superpowers,” he added.

According to Mr Stanekzai, the fate of foreign fighters in Afghanistan, the use of Afghan soil against other countries, – foreign fighters in Badakhshan’s Wardooj district – return of Afghan migrants, rights of victims of war, and return of Taliban to normal life are included in the agenda of the negotiations.
“Ceasefire is one of the key issues of talks,” he stressed.

On regional consensus on peace process, he underlined that “the success of the Bonn process in 2001 was regional consensus. But we do not have the same regional consensus on the Afghan peace process now”.
“The negotiating team of the Afghan Republic has been formed based on the Islamic and democratic values, and the rights of the Afghan people,” he added.