PARLIAMENT ASKS FOR ROLE IN RECONCILIATION TALKS

UNCLAS KABUL 002987 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CRS NSC FOR JWOOD OSD FOR MCGRAW CG CJTF-82, POLAD, JICCENT E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL AF SUBJECT: PARLIAMENT ASKS FOR ROLE IN RECONCILIATION TALKS REF: KABUL 2963 ¶1. (U) Members of Parliament are calling for a formal role in ongoing reconciliation talks in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Farooq Wardak, recently appointed education minister and a key player in the Afghan-Pakistani peace jirgas, appeared before Parliament's Lower House Nov. 12 to explain the government's outreach to insurgent groups, but faced a stiff rebuke from legislators who accused the government of pursuing the talks outside of legal channels. Some MPs, like many segments of Afghan society (reftel),are worried the government will make concessions to insurgent groups unwilling to respect the Constitution or that will refuse to disarm and recognize the sovereignty of the central government. ¶2. (U) MPs, mostly non-Pashtuns, said during the Nov. 12 plenary session they did not trust government reconciliation efforts that included only negotiators close to President Karzai. Ustad Mohammad Akbari (Bamyan, Hazara) complained to Wardak that Karzai was telling foreign governments, including the US, more about the talks than he told the Afghan legislature. Fawzia Koofi (Badakhshan, Tajik) said by comparison to the Pakistani parliament, Afghanistan's MPs were largely left out of the discussions. MPs asked Wardak to include input from Parliament in the government's reconciliation strategy ahead of future rounds of talks with the Taliban, HIG, or other insurgent groups. ¶3. (SBU) Wardak's response to the criticism has been less than conciliatory. He told MPs the executive branch was pursuing its own agenda without the involvement of legislators because Parliament hadn't passed any law requiring the government to do otherwise. He added that the negotiations are informal by default, since insurgent leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of HIG and Mullah Omar of the Taliban are not participating directly in the talks. The government's response to Parliament's concerns is unlikely to satisfy its critics and could trigger more alarm among non-Pashtuns who contend that Karzai is pursuing reconciliation against the interests of northern ethnic groups in order to improve his support for reelection among his fellow Pashtuns. WOOD