Taliban will not attack schools and markets under agreement to cut violence
The Taliban will not attack public institutions such as schools, universities and markets under a confidence-building agreement reached with Afghan officials after two days of talks in Doha.
Afghan politicians and Taliban envoys unveiled a basic “roadmap for peace” in the early hours of Tuesday after two days of emotional talks in the Qatari capital.
Both sides also vowed to cut civilian casualties in a war which last year saw 11,000 non-combatants killed or wounded, according to United Nations estimates.
Tuesday's declaration is not binding and did not formally involve the Afghan government the insurgents are trying to oust, but diplomats hope it will form a foundation for later, official talks.
The Taliban still refuse to talk directly with an Afghan government they brand as American puppets, until foreign troops have left Afghanistan. But in a diplomatic fudge, officials from Ashraf Ghani's government took part in a “personal capacity” alongside prominent opposition leaders, politicians and activists.
It's past midnight and the intra-Afghan Conference on Peace just concluded on a very positive note. I congratulate the participants - Afghan society representatives across generations, senior govt officials, Taliban - for finding common ground. pic.twitter.com/eZDBalmj2X
— U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) July 9, 2019
The talks ended with a joint "appeal and promise to reduce violence in Afghanistan," said Markus Potzel, Germany's Afghanistan envoy, who co-hosted the talks with Qatar.
A seventh round of separate talks between the Taliban and American negotiators is due to resume in the same city later on Tuesday. The enemies have spent months haggling over a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops and Taliban assurances that Afghanistan will not again become a base for transnational terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda.
Both sides have redoubled their military campaigns to try to gain leverage at the negotiating table, even as they have taken up tentative talks.
Taliban bomb attacks on targets near schools in Kabul and Ghazni have in the past week seen scores of children wounded.
Under the Doha roadmap, both sides agreed on “ensuring the security of public institutions, such as schools, religious madrassahs, hospitals, markets, water dams and other working locations”.
They also committed to “respect and protect the dignity of people, their life and property and to minimise the civilian casualties to zero”.
Other confidence building measures included the release of elderly and disabled prisoners.
Both sides also agreed to assure women's rights “within the Islamic framework of Islamic rights”.
"It's not an agreement, it's a foundation to start the discussion," delegate Mary Akrami, executive director of the Afghan Women's Network, told AFP. "The good part was that both sides agreed."
During the US-Taliban track of talks, Donald Trump's envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, has pushed for a full ceasefire from the Taliban, which the insurgents have rejected. The militants have inflicted heavy casualties on the Afghan forces in recent years and believe they have momentum on the battlefield. Last month the Taliban leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, said: “No one should expect us to pour cold water on the heated battlefronts of jihad.”
Mr Trump's disillusion with American involvement in Afghanistan and impending presidential elections in the country have put intense pressure on Mr Khalilzad to make progress
