KABUL (SW) – First vice president Amrullah Saleh has dubbed the mounting assaults by the Taliban as external and a results of “miscalculation of latest developments” by the insurgents.
Saleh in a Facebook post that the Taliban underestimated the national will and launched many attacks while misunderstanding the peace process. “The main reason for the increase in the Taliban’s absurd and bloody attacks on the Afghan people is the group’s misunderstanding and ignorance of political and external developments,” he said.
He added: “The Taliban consider the ceasefire to be their political death and think that by killing countless people, they will make people thirsty for the ‘peace of the cemetery’ of the 1990s”.
The VP added there has been popular resistance in many parts of Afghanistan where Taliban violence has escalated. “The Taliban will not reap any strategic or political benefits from this bloodshed because violence as a political tool is hated and rejected,” he said.
He asserted the defeat of the Taliban is inevitable because it is not possible to impose the Taliban’s ideology by force on the people in the pluralistic society of Afghanistan. “ … nor does the Taliban have a political agenda that the people can rely on,” he said.
In a part of the post, Saleh stated that after all these years with armed insurgency supported by army of Pakistan, the Taliban have failed to produce a charismatic leader. He went on to dub the Taliban as a tool of influence over Afghanistan by ‘neighbor’ that acts like a robot for its purpose.
Earlier this week, second vice president Sarwar Danish said the Taliban unnecessarily insist on stalling intra-Afghan talks and does not accept the Qur’an and Sunnah as a basis for resolving disputes. He told a news conference here on Saturday that although the Afghan government has proposed the Qur’an and Sunnah as basis to resolve the differences in the peace talks, however, the Taliban have refused to accept it basis for the talks to proceed.
About a month has passed since the direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha. The negotiating teams of the two sides have not been able to reach an agreement on the dispute resolution mechanism and agenda so far
ENDS
