Mohammad Hanif Atmar, former Afghan foreign minister, in Berlin, said that the war against the Taliban without a political agreement is in vain. Atmar called for the implementation of the Doha agreement and the 2nd Bonn meeting by all political fronts and the Taliban.
He criticised those who stressed on accepting and tolerating the Taliban as a reality of Afghanistan. Atmar said, "Accepting the Taliban will not lead to peace and stability." According to him, depriving the people of freedom and basic rights will destabilise the Taliban government in Afghanistan.
The former foreign minister of Afghanistan was speaking at the German Institute of Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin. He tried to highlight "intra-Afghan dialogues" as the way forward for the stabilisation of Afghanistan and addressing the security and humanitarian crises in the country.
Atmar called the armed resistance against the Taliban an "extreme view". He added that “an extreme view is war and the use of force against the Taliban until their complete defeat. This view is wrong.” According to the former foreign minister of Afghanistan, Afghans experienced the war over the last two decades and that didn’t produce the end result that they had envisioned.
Unlike other Afghan politicians that criticised the Doha agreement, he optimistically said that the agreement has provided the necessary legal framework to start a dialogue between the Taliban and other Afghan political groups.
Atmar did not mention that the Taliban has no intention to hold dialogue with important political actors of Afghanistan.
The Taliban has urged other Afghan groups to accept their reign of Afghanistan and has severely restricted and surveyed politicians such as Hamid Karzai and Dr Abdullah Abdullah, who currently reside inside Afghanistan.
The former foreign minister emphasised that the legitimacy of the government is not possible without democracy and respect for the basic rights of the people, therefore, a new government must be formed in Afghanistan with the presence of the Taliban.
