Afghan Peace Council learning about Nepal’s peacemaking process

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A delegation of the Afghan High level Peace Council meets Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Co-chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal to learn about the Nepali model of peace process, in Kathmandu, on Thursday, September 13, 2018. Photo: Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s secretariat

AT Monitoring Desk

A delegation of the Afghan High level Peace Council today met Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Co-chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal to learn about the Nepali model of peace process.

Nepal has faced a decade-long armed-conflict from 1996 to 2006 and Dahal was the chief of the erstwhile CPN-Maoist party.

The Afghan delegation asked Dahal about the sources of weapons, the condition of former rebel’s weapons and the Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction which was established to speed up the peace process.

The Peace and Reconstruction Ministry has already been integrated with other ministries, including the Ministry of Home Affairs in Nepal.

The rebels’ weapons and combatants were integrated in the national army, which is a unique phenomenon in the world. Some of the combatants are now in leading posts in the Nepali Army.

Afghan High level Peace Council Deputy Chief of mission and Former Minister Habiba Sarabi said her delegation was in Nepal to learn from Nepal’s peace process so as to guide the peace process in Afghanistan. She was the first woman to be appointed a provincial governor in Afghanistan and she had served as the minister of women’s affairs and minister of culture and education in the transitional government. She was also selected as second running mate to the 2014 presidential candidate Zalmai Rassoul.

Dahal led the armed conflict and later contributed to the peace process in Nepal. Dahal told the delegation that Nepal’s peace process would be a model for other countries in the world as it was a commendable model. Dahal said republicanism, federalism, secularism and proportional inclusion were major achievements of the peace process.

“We started the war for the rights of the people and established those rights to a great extent and many citizens participated in the movement for freedom,” Dahal told the Afghan delegation.

The Afghanistan High Peace Council is a body of the Afghanistan peace and reintegration programme, established by Hamid Karzai to negotiate with elements of the Taliban. The HPC was established on September 5, 2010. Former Afghan vice-president Karim Khalili has been leading the HPC since June 2017.

Nepali leaders briefed the Afghan delegation saying that the peace process could be more risky than war and both parties should be determined and responsible. “The dialogue is always give and take and the parties should not take a stand on the peace process,” Nepali leaders told the Afghan delegation.