Hekmat Khalil Karzai Photo: Wang Wenwen/GT

Editor's Note:

Afghanistan, together with other concerned countries, has put forward mechanisms such as the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) to facilitate the peace process. What are the responsibilities of the Afghan government? What questions remain over the shape of an eventual settlement and what is China's stake? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen talked to Hekmat Khalil Karzai (Karzai), Afghan deputy foreign minister and leading representative to the QCG, over these issues.

GT: You are the head of the Afghan side in the QCG on Afghan Peace and Reconciliation that includes China, the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan. How do you evaluate this mechanism? What's the key in reaching a consensus among the four parties?

Karzai: The objective of the QCG is to bring the Taliban to the table. If the four parties are not able to do so, then the reality is that they need to take actions against all of the groups that are not going to participate in the reconciliation. So far, all the parties' efforts have not brought the Taliban to the table. Our position is that we are going to ask each country, China, the US and particularly Pakistan, to tell us what they have done to deal with the Taliban. That's their commitment.

The most important thing for the QCG is to deliver. When all the four countries came, they made good progress on paper, but after that they haven't been able to show results or deliver. Every country has its own agenda, but the objective of the QCG is not for them to work on different agendas but particularly focus on bringing the Taliban to the table.

GT: Will the QCG involve any other stakeholders in the region?

Karzai: If the QCG decides that it wants to add another country, there is no problem. But the QCG has to make collective decisions about including any other country, such as Russia, India and Iran. It's better to have different perspectives, but at the same time, the more people you have, the more difficult to make decisions.

At this stage at least, we cannot get an agreement between four countries, and adding more people will make it more complicated.

GT: China is included in the QCG. It also reportedly proposed a four-nation regional alliance against terrorism that includes Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. How do you see China's role in facilitating Afghan peace talks?

Karzai: China is becoming increasingly active and it is a good sign. China has realized that it needs to engage with the region and its neighbors. The areas we want China to get involved in are economics, politics, military and security as well.

In each of these areas, there are things for the Chinese side to do. In the political process, the Chinese have contacts with the Taliban. It also has contacts with Pakistan and can use the contacts to influence the Pakistani side to make sure that the commitments Pakistan has made are fulfilled.

Militarily, there are a lot of security problems in the region and China also faces a security threat from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The ETIM now has fighters in Afghanistan. The Chinese side needs to support Afghanistan to deal with these threats, particularly the ETIM and Al Qaeda.

GT: Some analysts believe China is filling the vacuum in Afghanistan left by the US. What do you think?

Karzai: Each of them has different roles. China, as a neighbor and a country directly affected by insecurity of Afghanistan, has its own role. The US, as a strategic partner, has over 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. It also has strategic concerns. For us, what is unique is that there are not many places where China and the US can collaborate on a particular issue, but Afghanistan is one such place. We want Afghanistan to be known as the harbor of cooperation between all global powers.

GT: The Afghan Taliban announced on April 12 that it would launch a spring offensive, resulting in the massive bomb blast in mid April. President Ashraf Ghani recently vowed to deal a heavier blow to the Taliban. How?

Karzai: The best way to look at it is that every year, the Taliban start what it refers to as the Spring Offensive, and each spring they try to conduct operation in different areas. They try to make a lot of noise and capture territory. This year they started what it refers to as the Omari Operations, named after their former leader Mullah Omar.

But they were not successful because we were on the offensive. We kept targeting them and going after them. The president has instructed the security team to develop comprehensive plans. The ministry of defense, the ministry of interior and our intelligence agencies will target them.

What we are going to do is to make war on them because this is what they have asked for. We have constantly, for the past year and a half, kept saying that we want peace and make sure the door to peace is open. But sadly, they have chosen the way of violence.

On April 29, the president was given a list of people who are on a hit list. So the president may also analyze what can be done to deal with those issues. On our side, we take the life of every Afghan extremely seriously. We want to make sure that the operations we conducted are done with absolute care and do not jeopardize somebody's life or their health.

GT: Recently, the Afghan Taliban claimed to have sent a delegation to Pakistan for peace talks. What's your expectation of the talks? How do you see Pakistan's role in Afghan peace talks?

Karzai: We are not aware of that delegation. We don't think this is a delegation sent for peace talks. This is a delegation that I think the Taliban have said that they sent to Karachi to talk to the Pakistanis. My Pakistani colleagues said they were also not sure what's going on.

This is something done tactically, because when the president went to the parliament and made a big speech, they were trying to say that "Look, we are ready for peace talks." But we are not very clear about that objective of this trip. Neither the Taliban nor the Pakistanis have informed us.

The role of Pakistan is simple. Pakistan themselves has accepted, on the record, that there is Taliban leadership and the Taliban infrastructure in Pakistan. They need to put very serious pressure on them so they could be brought to the table.

If they are able to bring them to the table, keep them out of their country and send them to us, then we can deal with them.

The more militancy and the more terrorists in the region, the more difficult it will be in your own country to bring stability. Pakistan has suffered as well. There is a very serious belief in Afghanistan that they haven't really made that decision. That's what they need to attend to so that they come to a conclusion.