Upcoming Qatar Talks Can’t Make Final Call on Afghan War: AIHRC

In mid-April, Doha would host a second of peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan politicians in which the representatives of the Afghan government have also been invited to participate. But Kabul is yet to declare its position regarding the meeting.
The Taliban are expected to reach into an agreement with the Afghan politicians in this round of talks. The meeting is also expected to make way for talks with the Afghan government, which is considered to be the main discussion-making body in the peace process.
“The Taliban would not make an agreement with [Afghan] politicians, because it is the Afghan government which has been authorized to take decisions. They have to sign the agreement with the government,” said Sima Samar, chairperson of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).
The AIHRC expressed concern regarding Doha talks as no representative of the commission has been invited yet to participate in the meeting.  The commission said the values of human rights might get ignored in the talks.
Separately, Angelina Jolie, academy award-winning actress, and refugee activist pushed for the inclusion of Afghan women in ongoing peace talks during an address to ministers and diplomats at the United Nations on Friday.
“In Afghanistan, thousands of women have recently come together in public risking their lives to ask that their rights and the rights of their children be guaranteed in peace negotiations that so far they have been allow no part of,” Jolie told a ministerial meeting on U.N. peacekeeping.
“The international community’s silent response is alarming, to say the least,” said Jolie, a special envoy for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, which she began working with 18 years ago. “There can be no peace or stability in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world that involves trading away the rights of women.”
Jolie also touted the importance of a United States that is “part of an international community,” after a retreat by U.S. President Donald Trump from U.N. agencies and global agreements that has some countries concerned about his commitment to multilateralism.
“I’m a patriot, I love my country and I want to see it thrive. I also believe in an America that is part of an international community. Countries working together on equal footing is how we reduce the risk of conflict,” she said.
“A country that believes that all men and women are born free and equal cannot be true to itself if it doesn’t defend those principles for all people, wherever they live,” she said.