Eighteen days after his meeting with President Ashraf Ghani and former president Hamid Karzai, Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar said that eight issues over which he reached an agreement with Ghani have not been implemented, saying the Afghan president could not gather his (Ghani's) team's support on the agreed points.
Ghani, Karzai and Hekmatyar discussed the following issues last week: The participation at the Istanbul conference with a unified plan, the establishment of a short-term transitional government, holding elections, the establishment of a decision-making council, the release of Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami prisoners, permanent ceasefire and convening the constitutional Loya Jirga (a grand council) to amend the Constitution.
The meeting happened earlier this month and was facilitated by former president Karzai.
“Regretfully, the president was faced with problems within his government team and could not get everyone’s agreement--neither on the peace plan nor on the Supreme Council and its formation and powers,” Hekmatyar said.
Hekmatyar said that the president had vowed to share the agreed points with his colleagues and would implement them within eight days after the meeting, but Hekmatyar said this has not happened.
Hekmatyar said that an inclusive plan for peace will be formed if the agreements are implemented. He suggested that this plan should be shared with the Taliban leaders through Afghan politicians in a secret meeting.
“We leave the selection of the three options to the government. Accept the agreements of the trilateral meeting--select one of the two new options--otherwise, we will have no choice but to make our independent decision on peace and on the overarching situation,” Hekmatyar said.
He said the government is losing its ground and warned that if his agreements are not implemented by the administration, he would make decisions unilaterally.
Some politicians, however, said that the persistence of such differences and the formation of councils that are parallel to already existing entities in the government will not be in Afghanistan’s favor.
“Let’s not spend the budget, not waste the time and not connect with another invalid period,” the deputy speaker of the Senate, Mohammad Alam Ezedyar, said.