Afghanistan Times
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President Ashraf Ghani had positive talks with the leaders of the neighboring countries at the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit held in China’s port city of Qingdao.
In a meeting with Iranian President, Hassan Rouhani, Ghani asked for Tehran’s help restore security in Afghanistan. Iran’s Rouhani was quoted by Iranian media outlets as saying that his country would spare no efforts to help establish sustainable peace and fight terrorism in Afghanistan.
Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, appealed for a regional front against terrorism.
The most outstanding thing in the regional leaders’ words was the Afghan government’s peace efforts and the recent ceasefire with the Taliban announced by president Ghani. The leaders of the region praised the attempt as another step towards sustainable peace.
The move made them more hopeful when Taliban gave a positive response to the government’s call and declared ceasefire.
The four-decade war in Afghanistan has made tired not only the people of the war-hit country, but has affected and made tired other nations in the region as well. This war now proves that is not in the benefit of any person or state, because the flames of this war will soon or late reach them.
This is a reality that every nation can make better decisions for its prosperity and the Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace process should be carried out based on this slogan, and the government of Afghanistan should pursue the program through negotiations with the Taliban who are also Afghans.
But the program also requires the help of our neighbors and other states in the region. Unfortunately, the NATO-led states were less successful to help Afghans restore peace during the past 17 years. Their presence in the war on terror gave negative result as war and violence intensified and the insurgent groups gained more power to jeopardize stability in Afghanistan.
The regional countries are closer to Afghans and Afghanistan by several aspects and we know each other better, so their mediation to convince the armed groups especially Taliban to abandon the tiresome violence and say ‘YES’ to the peace call of their people.
Some of our neighbors that still think instability in Afghanistan is in their benefit, should realize that the whole region is reaching a consensus against terrorists and their backers. So, they are asked that they still have time ahead to rethink about their policies and hurry to join the grand regional consensus before it is late for them.
