ISLAMABAD - Pakistan and the United States have enhanced cooperation to placate Taliban for peace in the war-torn Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday.
Senior officials at the foreign ministry told The Nation that the latest release of the two Taliban leaders was also part of the peace plan.
One official said that the US was ‘reasonably satisfied’ with Pakistan efforts for peace in Afghanistan but still wanted more action. “They are still demanding more but have started to acknowledge our efforts. They (the US) are offering to be helpful,” he said.
Another official said the Taliban leaders were being released under the new peace plan. “Pakistan has always supported talks and if release of the Taliban leaders can help, we are ready to go ahead. All efforts (by Pakistan and the US) are aimed at placating the Taliban,” he added.
This week, Pakistan had released two Taliban officials as US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad visits the region. Taliban control nearly half of Afghanistan.
Abdul Samad Sani, a US-designated terrorist who served as the Afghan Central Bank governor during the Taliban rule in the late 1990s, and a lower-ranking commander named Salahuddin were released on November 12.
Khalilzad is on his second regional tour since being appointed, with stops in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United Arab Emirates as well as Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office.
When Khalilzad was last in the region Pakistan had released another Taliban leader, Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the founders of the radical religious movement.
Baradar was arrested in 2010 in a joint US and Pakistani operation. At the time, it was reported Baradar was taken into custody by Pakistan after he tried to open independent peace talks with Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s then-president.
Karzai has recently said that he had repeatedly tried to secure Baradar’s release but Pakistan and the US did not cooperate. Baradar’s release had been a long-standing demand of the Taliban.
Afghanistan’s government, jointly headed by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, has been prickly about direct talks between Washington and the Taliban.
Over the weekend, the Afghan refugees’ stay in Pakistan was extended amid severe weather. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees decided to suspend the repatriation process of Afghan refugees in Pakistan for a few months due to cold weather.
The repatriation process will be halted from December 1 till February 28 next year due to drop in temperature and severe cold, said a spokesperson.
Officials of the Afghan commissionerate suggest that nearly 1.4 million refugees had been issued ‘Proof of Registration’ cards and were being managed by the UNHCR.
There were 880,000 refugees who had been issued Afghan citizenship cards under the National Action Plan to register undocumented persons living in Pakistan.
The United Nations refugee agency and local officials say there were 2.7 million Afghans, including 1.5 million registered as refugees, in Pakistan. The displaced families have fled decades of conflict, ethnic and religious persecution, poverty and economic hardships in turmoil-hit Afghanistan.
Several UN surveys suggest that around 60 percent of Afghan refugees were either born in Pakistan or were minors when their parents migrated to Pakistan. War-shattered Afghanistan is therefore alien to most of these young people who were already part of the local economy in different ways.
These refugees are reluctant to go back to Afghanistan where security conditions have deteriorated in the wake of the stalemated war between US-backed Afghan security forces and the Taliban.
During his recent visit to Kabul, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi had “underlined the need for dignified, sustainable repatriation of Afghan refugees to their homeland through a gradual and time-bound plan.”
Pakistan is also actively supporting the Afghan peace efforts by the United States, China and Russia.
US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells just concluded her visit to Pakistan where she discussed the bilateral and regional issues with the Pakistan officials.
Last week, Additional Secretary at the Foreign Office Mohammed Aejaz led a Pakistani delegation to Moscow for ‘Format Consultations on Afghanistan.’