Acting Afghan Foreign Minister H E Mohammad Haneef Atmar addressing a press conference, in Doha, yesterday. Pic: Salim Matramkot/The Peninsula
Doha: Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, H E Mohammad Haneef Atmar, has said that Afghan peace process has benefited greatly from the role played by the State of Qatar.
Addressing a press conference in Doha yesterday, Atmar said there were two important objectives of the visit by President of Afghanistan H E Dr. Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to Qatar. “The first objective is to advance the peace process and the other is to expand our bilateral ties and cooperation with Qatar,” he said terming the existing cooperation between the two countries as ‘multi-faceted’.
He said President Ghani and the accompanying delegation had a number of high level meetings in Doha with Qatar’s leadership which were very successful in many ways.
“In the meetings, first we thanked the leadership of Qatar for their continued support for the Afghan peace process. This process has benefited greatly from the role the government of Qatar has played.
“The government of Afghanistan appreciates this role and we will like to continue our cooperation with the government of Qatar to achieve our shared goal of peace and stability,” he added.
The Acting Foreign Minister said: “I reiterate that the role our two partners — the US and Qatar — have played in this process is very much appreciated by the government of Afghanistan, and we believe that by working with our partners we have better chance to succeed in peace process.”
To a question, he said Qatar and Afghanistan had agreed to establish a high-level bilateral commission to foster bilateral relations and cooperation.
He said leaders from both the countries, during meetings, focused on peace negotiations and challenges that the process was facing. “Good consensus reached between leaders from both the countries on next steps on how to deal with challenges and obstacles in the way to achieve peace and for success of peace negotiations.”
He said the Afghan government was extremely grateful for the high level of political will on part of Qatar to expand bilateral cooperation especially in economic spheres.
He said that the government of Afghanistan was pursuing three goals at this stage of peace process. “Our first goal is to remove all the obstacles in the way of reaching an agreement on the rules and procedures of peace talks. There are two pending issues in this regard which have to be resolved.”
The second goal of the Afghanistan government, he said, was achieving a comprehensive ceasefire according to the desire of Afghan people. “Our focus is on reduction in violence as promised with the people of Afghanistan. We also have to establish a special mechanism to monitor the level of violence and allow two sides to take effective measures to address the reasons behind violence.” He said that the third goal of Afghanistan government, through peace negations, was reaching a political settlement which should establish permanent ceasefire in the country.
