Translated material
Afghan surprises in London
At the conference they named the price for the “moderate Taliban”
The ten-page, 34-point communiqué “Afghan Leadership, Regional Cooperation, International Partnership” was the outcome of the International Conference on Afghanistan, held in London on January 28. The main objective of the document was to outline a plan for preparing the Afghan authorities to assume responsibility for the situation in the country in the process of gradual withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force from Afghanistan. “We advocate a transition strategy, we have treated Afghanistan as a no man's land, decisions about which must be made thousands of miles away. Afghans tell us that they know their country and want to have more rights to their own voice,” Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, said in London.The government in Kabul's desire to recognize the leading role of Afghan security forces in decision-making at all stages of military operations in its country has received support in London. Moreover, paragraph 10 of the communiqué urged Kabul to begin “conducting most operations in insecure regions within three years, and to ensure physical protection” of the population there within five years. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in London that Afghan troops "will take on more and more responsibility, province by province, starting this year."
To help achieve these goals, the conference confirmed its readiness to assist Kabul in increasing the size of the Afghan national army by October 2011 to 171.6 thousand people, and the police to 134 thousand people. According to British Prime Minister Howard Brown, the number of foreign troops in Afghanistan should be increased to 135 thousand troops by the end of this year. A more detailed plan to hand over control to the Afghan military is expected to be discussed at a conference in Kabul later this year.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai (pictured) certainly looked like a key figure at the London conference. He demonstrated optimism, promising that “by 2014, Afghan law enforcement agencies will be able to independently ensure the country’s security.” “We don't want to be a burden to the international community,” Karzai argued, apparently well aware of what is expected of him in the West, where public opinion is increasingly demanding that their governments bring soldiers home from Afghanistan. However, he immediately added that his country will need foreign support for at least another 15 years.
In London, the Afghan president called on Western militaries to minimize the number of air operations, which should sharply reduce the number of civilian casualties. Karzai spoke about the inadmissibility of conducting “unauthorized searches” in the homes of Afghans, which have become routine practice for foreign military personnel. He also spoke about his government’s determination to declare war on corruption, which will become one of its “primary tasks.” The Afghan leader was aware that the corruption corroding the upper layers of the Afghan bureaucracy was giving rise to serious doubts in the West about the effectiveness of the Kabul regime.
The main hit of Hamid Karzai’s speech was the plan he announced for the peaceful reintegration of the “moderate Taliban” into the social and political system of Afghanistan. No one in London gave a formal definition to this term. In general, it is understood that “moderate” refers to the Taliban who are ready to voluntarily surrender their weapons, renounce armed resistance to the authorities and recognize the constitution of Afghanistan.
It became known that Karzai approached the Saudi Arabian authorities with a proposal to become a mediator in the dialogue between official Kabul and the “moderate” mullahs. According to Reuters, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal named two conditions under which Riyadh is ready to respond to this proposal: an official request from Kabul and proof of a complete break between the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Western capitals, as well as Moscow and Beijing, were ready for Karzai's plans. They were given the green light on the eve of the London conference, when the UN Security Council, without voting, based on consensus, removed five former representatives of the top and middle level of the Taliban leadership from sanctions. The most famous of them is the former foreign minister of the Taliban government, Mullah Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil.
In the late 1990s, the author of these lines had the opportunity to meet twice with Mutawakil in Kabul during the peacekeeping attempts then undertaken in Afghanistan by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, Boris Shikhmuradov. After the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001 and Mutawakil’s voluntary surrender to the new authorities, the Afghanistan.ru news agency quoted an anonymous American source as saying that Mutawakil “plays a very important role” in organizing negotiations with the Taliban.
According to rumors, the top Taliban diplomat even quarreled with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, disagreeing with the invitation of al-Qaeda to Afghanistan. “Such guests destroy the house that sheltered them,” Mullah Mutawakil repeated, according to his assistants. It is also alleged that Mutawakil met with US and UN representatives and tried to warn about a terrorist attack planned for September 11, 2001, but his words were drowned in an avalanche of messages about impending terrorist attacks.
At the conference, an agreement was reached on the creation of a fund for the peaceful reintegration of the Taliban, to which it is planned to contribute $140 million this year, half of which Germany has pledged to allocate. In total, it is expected to spend from half a billion to a billion dollars for these purposes in the coming years. This point of the peace plan is subject to the most fierce criticism of many experts, who consider the creation of the fund a useless attempt to bribe the Taliban - they say they will take the money, maybe even stop shooting for a while, but they will not put up with Karzai’s puppet government. One way or another, London welcomed Karzai's intention to convene a peaceful loya jirga (all-Afghan council of elders) in the coming months to discuss reconciliation with the moderate part of the Taliban.
According to sources in the Russian delegation, at the London conference they reacted with interest to the idea of post-conflict Afghanistan accepting the status of a neutral state, voiced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. This proposal was not included in the text of the final communiqué. Moscow did not insist on this, since “it sees no point in slamming the door on the Americans and their allies for returning to Afghanistan in the coming years if something goes wrong there again,” a senior Russian diplomat explained to Vremya Novostey in London. He noted that “the Americans are smart enough that, after leaving Afghanistan, they will not leave it far and for a long time.” The Russian leadership is aware that the military infrastructure of the United States and NATO, during the process of withdrawal from Afghanistan, can be deployed “on a temporary basis” in neighboring countries, for example, in Uzbekistan.
It is possible that Tashkent was guided by similar considerations, based on its own understanding of its role in the Afghan settlement, when at the last moment it refused to send the head of the Uzbek Foreign Ministry, Vladimir Norov, to the London conference. No official explanation was given for such an affront in the Uzbek capital. Uzbekistan, which is chairing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization this year, did not explain the reasons why the SCO Secretary General and ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan Muratbek Imanaliev unexpectedly could not arrive in London. In Moscow, where they worked hard to ensure that the SCO was represented at the Afghan conference, according to VN, they were unpleasantly surprised by this Uzbek surprise.