ISLAMABAD (SW): Following sessions in Doha and Kabul, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs hosted another session on Afghan conflict in Islamabad on Wednesday.
Politicians, scholars and public figures from Afghanistan and Pakistan attended the conference but representatives of the Taliban reportedly declined to participate. The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. It was founded in 1957 by Joseph Rotblat and Bertrand Russell in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Raheemullah Yousufzai, a Pakistani journalist told Salam Watandar that views were exchanged over peace in Afghanistan in this conference. He noted that this session had no official endorsement but such sessions can help to resolve the crisis in the longer run.
Commenting on this session, Muhibullah Sharif, a Kabul bases analyst, told Salam Watandar that the Taliban have manifested with their absence that they do not associate any importance to it. He hinted that the Islamabad government might have barred the Taliban from attending or the Taliban themselves might have concluded that they cannot obtain desirable results with this session in Pakistan.
On their part, the Taliban have not commented about it. It is worth noticing that the efforts for peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban hit a snag during the previous Afghan government under Hamid Karzai when the Taliban hoisted their regime’s white flags on their political office in Doha, Qatar; a move that angered the Afghan government. Since then, Pugwash has been trying to revive the peace talks.
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