Fazl urges Afghans to work for political reconciliation

Chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Maulana Fazlur Rahman has said that the effectiveness of Afghan elections was linked to Afghan internal political reconciliation. In a statement issued by the JUI-F spokesman, the Maulana said after completion of this important election Afghans to decide the ambit of their relations with the Nato and the US. He said in particular, internal Afghan political reconciliation was the only way to ensure long-term security and stability in the country underpinned by constitutionalism and economic development.
He said the JUI-F was the first political party to urge all Afghans to pivot to the politics of internal reconciliation and that advice was also for the Afghan Taliban if they wanted to make their sacrifices meaningful. "The Afghan Taliban need to come to the table with all Afghans and become shapers of the country's future with other fellow Afghans," he added.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, he said stability and peace in Afghanistan were directly liked with security and stability in Pakistan so Islamabad has a role to effectively facilitate Afghan reconciliation.
He said the so-called war on terror has failed to stem terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan thus entire emphasis should be on the politics and diplomacy of reconciliation.
Maulana Fazlur Rahman said that the Western alliance also needs to come clean on how many Afghans and Pakistanis died in collateral damage and drones attacks. "This is time for honest reckoning for the Western alliance what good or bad they did in Afghanistan and in the region," he observed.
He said in the midterm, Afghanistan's political future need to be underpinned by economic opportunities and this is only possible by exploitation of natural and mineral resources. He also regretted that China has suspended its involvement in cooper project in Afghanistan. He said that China needs to revisit its "passive-non interference policy" in Afghanistan as it simply can not disengage every time it faces security challenge to its economic interest, be that in Afghanistan's cooper development project or in Pakistan's proposed Eastern corridor, as there will always be geo-political contesters undermining its interests. Thus Afghans need to convince China adopts pro-active non-interference policy so that it becomes well entrenched economic stakeholder in the stability and prosperity of Afghanistan.