Women will determine limits for peace: Ghani

Monitoring Desk

KABUL: Presidential candidate in incumbent President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani at a campaign rally in Kabul on Monday said Afghan women will determine the boundaries for peace and that there will be no compromise on women’s rights in peace negotiations. Ghani said he will establish a women’s council which will have similar authorities to the National Security Council if he is re-elected. He also vowed to boost women’s role in the government.

“We will support women empowerment through domestic resources, not through foreign charity,” Mr. Ghani said. He reiterated that the presidential election will be held on its scheduled time. The women, who attended the gathering, said they will support such plans for women by Ghani. Anarkali Honaryar, a Senator, suggested that women in remote areas should be supported and that their areas should be visited within the next five years.

“On behalf of women in this hall, I call for a large presence of women in future government and in the election,” a women’s rights activist Arifa Paikan said. So far, six out of 18 presidential candidates have launched their campaign rallies while others have not held a public gathering since the start of the election campaign on July 28.

Meanwhile, as senior negotiators from the United States and the Taliban are discussing a potential peace deal in Doha aimed at finding a political settlement to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, President Ashraf Ghani, whose administration has been out of the recent talks, on Monday reiterated that Afghans’ position on Islamic republic remains clear and that there is no alternative for it. Agha Jan Mutasim, former member of Taliban’s political commission in Quetta and finance minister during the group’s regime in Kabul, in an interview with TOLOnews suggested that in order to create a political system, acceptable to all, there is a need to establish a political system which is a mixture of Islamic emirate and Islamic republic.

“I suggest this system as the emirate of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in which values of the republic system and the emirate system are reflected,” Mr. Mutasim said. But, Mr. Mutasim’s statement sparked a strong backlash from members of the Afghan parliament and President Ghani who has persistently said that the protection of an Islamic republic will be his government’s red line in talks with the insurgents. “The choice is quite simple. Republic or emirate?” Mr. Ghani asked a crowd of Afghan women in Kabul. “Republic, republic, republic,” Mr. Ghani replied.

Lawmakers in Afghanistan’s parliament said Afghans have “bitter memories” from the Taliban’s Islamic emirate and that they will “never accept” the return of such a government. “The Islamic emirate has never addressed the social needs of the people nor their political needs and people’s Islamic needs,” said Atta Mohammad Dehqanpor, an MP from Herat. Taliban after taking over the country changed the political system into an Islamic emirate. Only three countries, including Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, had recognized the Taliban’s government which ruled over Kabul from 1996 to early 2001.(Tolo News)

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