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Ghani’s escape deep-sixed Afghanistan’s High Council deal with Taliban, says top official

Leader of the Hezb-e Wahdat Islami Afghanistan party stressed that the peace process had benefited both the Hazara minority and Afghanistan
Leader of the Hezb-e Wahdat Islami Afghanistan party Karim Khalili AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq
Leader of the Hezb-e Wahdat Islami Afghanistan party Karim Khalili
© AP Photo/Musadeq Sadeq

MOSCOW, September 22. /TASS/. The government of ex-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has discarded an agreement reached by Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation with members of the Taliban (outlawed in Russia) over the establishment of a cabinet that would be in line with the interests of all political and ethnic country’s groups, Leader of the Hezb-e Wahdat Islami Afghanistan party Karim Khalili said on Wednesday.

"Under Ashraf Ghani’s presidency, we maintained a peaceful policy towards the Taliban. I was one of the founding architects of the peaceful approach promoted by Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation. We [reached an agreement] to create a government which would respect the rights of all ethnic and political groups, the Taliban side agreed with that. However, Ghani’s government deep-sixed this deal. Having fled and left everything to the Taliban, he thus paved the way for its domination," Khalili noted.

He stressed that the peace process had benefited both the Hazara minority and Afghanistan. "Given the plans for the foreign forces’ pullout from Afghanistan and forecasts for a change in the situation after the withdrawal of NATO troops, I saw the success and effectiveness of the peace process as the only way to solve the Afghan crisis, which ultimately was to prevent the collapse of the system and the destruction of the achievements of the Afghan people, and to avoid the seizure of the entire country by one force that would fuel a civil war, murder and bloodshed," the leader concluded.

Mohammad Karim Khalili served as the second Vice-President of Afghanistan during the Hamid Karzai administration in 2004-2014. Since 2017, he has served as the head of Afghanistan’s High Council for National Reconciliation. As leader of the People's Islamic Unity Party of Afghanistan representing the interests of the Hazaras, he attempted to iron out tensions between members of this ethnic group and the Taliban by means of consultations and peace negotiations.