Second Vice President Mohammad Sarwar Danesh on Friday slammed the Taliban for the high level of violence and bringing up “new preconditions,” stressing the need for preserving the current political system in the country if the goal is to achieve enduring peace.
Addressing an event on the first death anniversary of Mohammad Baqir Mohaqiq, son of presidential adviser Mohammad Mohaqiq, Danesh said the peace negotiations between the Afghan Republic and the Taliban negotiators have stopped but stressed the government’s willingness to resume the talks that are aimed at finding a political settlement to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan.
The second vice president said the current opportunity for peace should be seized and that the Taliban has shown “less sincerity” to the reconciliation efforts and instead, they have increased their violence in the country.
Danesh said an interim setup will bring more violence in the country and that moving towards such a decision will mean returning to the past. He called on Afghan political leaders and the international community to deal with Afghanistan’s major issues with responsibility.
“The negotiations in Doha are faced with a type of stalemate,” Danesh said. “The Taliban representatives are busy on their political trips and sometimes they come up with new preconditions.”
Other politicians who addressed the gathering also slammed the Taliban for increasing violence in the country and said more efforts should be made for peace in the country.
Presidential adviser Mohammad Mohaqiq said the Taliban is preparing for a new season of war and that the government should also be ready for tough conflicts.
“There will be unprecedented fighting in the spring if peace efforts fail,” Mohaqiq added.
Former vice president Mohammad Karim Khalili said the current opportunity for peace is historic and that it should be seized by all parties to the conflict.
“The path of a continued war will never move the country towards prosperity,” said Khalili.
Former vice president Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum meanwhile in a message blamed the Taliban for the continued bloodshed in the country.
“I have persistently asked the government to unite and take solid action against terrorism in order to overcome insecurity and other problems,” Dostum said in his message that was read by his spokesman at the event.
This comes a day after First Vice President Amrullah Saleh said that those Taliban prisoners who were released from the Afghan government jails as part of the US-Taliban peace deal are playing a major role in the rising security threat to the country.
Saleh added that he is ready to prove case-by-case that the released prisoners are involved in the current violence against the people.
“We are ready to prove case-by-case that the 5,500 Taliban prisoners that we released for peace--they are somehow involved in the surge in violence and murders of the people—this trust was blind and without a strategy, we will not repeat it again,” Saleh wrote on Facebook.
But the Taliban released a list of 30 of their freed prisoners, saying that they were either killed, arrested, or forced by the government forces to leave their areas.
Statistics collected by TOLOnews show that 270 people were killed and 347 more wounded in 214 explosions, attacks and shootings in January alone across the country.