(Written by Abu Raja Haider)
With just a few weeks to go before the withdrawal of US troops under the Doha Accords, Afghanistan's future is still in jeopardy. However, other countries in the region, including the United States and Pakistan, are working to make the talks between the Afghan leadership and the Taliban a success. Talks were called for a peace deal that would end more than four decades of war in Afghanistan.
US Special Envoy Zalmai Khalilzad called for an all-party interim government At a conference in Turkey next month, the Afghan president will reject the proposal and propose a new presidential election. An Afghan government official said: "We are going to present a counter-proposal at the Istanbul meeting. If the Taliban agrees to a ceasefire, then the presidential election should be held as soon as possible.
The reaction of the United States, the Taliban, and other parties to this will be clear only when the proposal comes to light. The parties are ready for a mutually agreed solution That is why talks between the Afghan leadership in Doha and the Taliban, which took place in Doha under US pressure, are still stalled and violence in Afghanistan is escalating. He said it was difficult to meet the May 1 deadline for withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan. They want to leave Afghanistan in a safe and orderly manner. I do not intend to stay in Afghanistan for long. We will leave Afghanistan. The question is when we will leave. I do not see US troops in Afghanistan next year.
The Afghan president has not yet given any details about his proposal, but two government officials in Kabul have said that Ashraf Ghani will announce his election plan at an all-stakeholder conference in Turkey next month. A senior Afghan government official says early elections in Afghanistan are a fair plan for Afghanistan's future.
The position of the Taliban
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban immediately rejected Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's proposal to hold elections later this year, saying such measures and elections had pushed Afghanistan to the brink of crisis in the past. Ashraf Ghani is now talking about a process that has always been full of scandals. Any decision on the future of the country must be coordinated through ongoing negotiations between the parties, we will never support it.
The complex history of Afghanistan's elections
Elections in Afghanistan have always been a difficult process. There are many obstacles in the way of elections. In a war-torn country, elections are another opportunity for fraud, low voter turnout, and insurgency.
Now the United States, Russia, and other stakeholders want an interim government to be formed in Afghanistan in one form or another. But incumbent President Ashraf Ghani insists that "leaders be chosen" only through the ballot box.
The Kabul government, meanwhile, wants to keep US forces in the country as long as possible, and its biggest argument or justification for this is that the country has been engulfed in renewed violence for the past few months. The Taliban, after gaining so much on the battlefield in Afghanistan, no longer expects to benefit from any of these strategies. Taliban deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar told a conference in Moscow last week that "Afghans should be left to decide their own destiny." The parties must understand that if they do not reach a solution, the Afghan soil will once again be engulfed in a wave of violence and insecurity that will not end in the hands of either side. In short, in the current context, the future of Afghanistan seems to be in question once again.
