Wednesday 05 / February / 2025
Brussels: Regional powers have agreed to try to revive Afghanistan's stalled peace process after almost 40 years of conflict, the European Union's (EU) foreign policy chief said on Wednesday, as the West sought to raise some $13 billion to fund the country through 2020.
Facing a resurgent Taliban 15 years after US forces helped drive the militant group from Kabul, more than 70 governments in Brussels promised more financial support, in tandem with NATO's ongoing military backing.
While a multi-billion-dollar annual donor pledge looked beyond doubt, diplomats said, the European Union took on the more complex challenge of seeking a negotiated peace, bringing together the United States, China, India, and Pakistan at a dinner on Tuesday night.
Federica Mogherini, who coordinates EU foreign policy, said there was an understanding "to work on a common basis for regional political support for the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan."
"Yesterday night (Tuesday night) we found common ground to support this process with a regional perspective and the European Union will try to facilitate this," Mogherini said.
There have been several attempts in recent years to broker a settlement between the Western-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban, but all have failed. Without the militants at the table, experts say it is hard to envisage a meaningful solution.
Two people briefed on the dinner, attended by US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon among others, told Reuters that Chinese and Indian officials were willing to consider peace talks.
"There are several countries that actually can help come together, and I urge Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Iran to think about the special role that they could play in this region in order to make a major difference... in reaching peace with the Taliban," Kerry told the donor conference on Wednesday.
But there remain divisions about if, or when, to include Taliban militants. Even if they were invited, it is unclear whether the movement would take part.
Hope was briefly raised in 2015 when Taliban officials met the Afghan government in neighbouring Pakistan, but that process was shortlived, and the Taliban, under their second new leader in just over a year, insist that foreign forces must leave Afghanistan before peace talks can begin.
They are also on the offensive, and battlefield successes have exposed the defensive limits of Afghanistan's NATO-trained armed forces which are supposed to number 350,000 personnel but which have been heavily depleted by casualties and desertion.
Militants briefly penetrated the centre of the northern city of Kunduz on Monday, and they are also testing the defences of two other provincial capitals in the south of the country.
US and EU officials have been encouraged by a smaller peace agreement last month between the Afghan government and a local warlord.
Earlier Kerry said the Taliban should look at the example of a deal between the Afghan government and militant commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as a path to an "honorable" peace in Afghanistan.
"This a model for what might be possible... I think the message from every person here would be to the Taliban, take note," Kerry said.
"There is a path forward towards an honorable end to the conflict that the Taliban have waged - it is a conflict that cannot and will not be won on the battlefield. A political settlement negotiated with the Afghan government is the only way to end the fighting, ensure lasting stability, and achieve a full drawdown ultimately of international military forces, which is their goal," he said.
"Their goal of ridding Afghanistan of external forces will not occur by... the continued insurgency, it will come though peace," Kerry added.
