Khalilzad Shared Date of Turkey Summit With Delegates

US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad sent a letter to negotiators representing the Afghan republic and the Taliban specifying the date for the Turkey conference on Afghanistan, sources in Qatar said.

The sources said that a political consensus for an early solution to the Afghanistan crisis, the establishment of a shared government and a regional and international consensus will be the main parts of the agenda at the Turkey summit.

The sources said that Khalilzad shared the details of the Turkey conference with both teams of negotiators in Doha after multilateral meetings held in Qatar to unify the summit agenda failed to result in any tangible progress.

But the two sides of delegates have so far have not commented on receiving the details on the Turkey summit agenda from Zalmay Khalilzad.

Multilateral meetings have been underway in Doha for less than two weeks in which representatives of the Afghan republic, the Taliban, UN, US, Turkey and Qatar have held talks on the Istanbul conference.

Sources said that the details of the agenda handed to the negotiators will be made public if they are accepted by the two sides.

“Efforts led by Dr. Khalilzad are underway to create a regional, international and internal consensus in Kabul so that it will change Turkey into a summit that opens the way for settlement,” university lecturer Faiz Mohammad Zaland said.

Some negotiators said that efforts are still underway to unify the agenda of the summit.

“Talks are underway between representatives of the UN and countries supporting the Turkey conference with the two delegations and the meetings of the working groups to unify views,” said Ghulam Farooq Majroh, a member of the Afghan republic’s negotiating team.

A former Afghan intelligence official said that the lack of an internal consensus and the lack of a unified stance among Afghans in the peace process have affected the people’s capacity to make a decision regarding the process.

“This itself shows that when we cannot agree on agenda, how can we agree on bigger issues?” said Rahmatullah Nabil, former head of the Afghan intelligence agency, NDS.

Back in Kabul, political leaders are assessing more than two dozen peace proposals, including that of President Ashraf Ghani, to compress them into a “unified” proposal for presenting it at the Turkey summit.

Abdullah Abdullah, head of the reconciliation council, tweeted on Tuesday that the political leaders in their recent meetings continue to discuss in detail the peace proposals “to unify the republic’s position for the Istanbul’s peace conference.”

But Nabil said that President Ghani’s proposal – with its three main parts of making, building, and maintaining peace – will not be fit for the country.

“I don’t think that it will have a practical dimension. Considering the situation we and the region have and the views that have been provided by different countries behind closed doors, I don’t think it will be accepted at the Turkey summit,” Nabil said.

The exact date of the Turkey conference is not known yet but recently sources said that there are discussions about April 16 as a potential date for the start of the event.

The reconciliation council has said that a 12 to 15-member team will represent the republic in the conference. The Taliban so far has not talked about the formation of their delegation that will attend the meeting.