KABUL (SW) – Sarwar Danish, the second vice-president, has strongly criticized the draft peace proposal by the High Council for National Reconciliation.
In a social media post, Danish said the draft by the HCNR has furthered differences rather than a developing a cohesive strategy from the government. According to him, the draft has many shortcomings and weaknesses and is not in shape to be presented at the Istanbul conference on behalf of the Republic side.
He said that the draft was an insult to the plan floated by President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani and the Afghan government by only calling it ‘’A’’ proposal with no details mentioned. Danish added that the technical committee of the HCNR has put extra emphasis on the proposal “B”, which calls for transitional government, in detail and explanatory way.
Sarwar Danish added that the HCNR committee has largely focused on Zalmay Khalilzad’s proposal and approved it with some amendments and has not taken any initiative on its own.
He stressed that opinion leaders and the common people should present their views, ideas and criticisms on the said plan, so that a complete and acceptable plan can be formulated with due diligence.
According to the second vice-president, based on an earlier decision, the HCNR’s drafting of the peace plan should have consolidated all perspectives and formulated a single draft, but according to him, the committee failed in this regard.
According to him, only one party’s point of view has been taken into account in the said draft. Danish added that the idea of a parliamentary or presidential system belongs to one party only and should not be mentioned in the name of the entire Republic front, as well as all ethnic groups and parties. Sarwar Danish emphasized that the conditions were not right for a parliamentary system due to the lack of a feasible environment for an inclusive party system and the fact that previous experiences with the system had failed.
Danish criticized the division of power between the two ethnic groups, one for the presidency and the other for the prime minister, saying that other ethnic groups were ranked third and fourth and were completely ignored. He said the plan does not represent ethnic participation and widens the gap between them.
The HCNR on Monday said that the work of the draft peace committee has been completed and it has been handed over to the leadership of the council.
A spokesman for the council, Fereydoun Khozoun, said the draft would be presented to the National Reconciliation Council’s leadership committee in the coming days and, after approval, would be presented at a meeting in Istanbul.
ENDS
