Najmuddin suggests coordination group to back Afghan peace talks

Formation of a coordination group comprising Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and United States was suggested here on Saturday by former secretary ministry of foreign affairs Najmuddin A Sheikh, to support peace negotiations with Taliban.
In an exclusive talk organized by Society for Global Moderation (SGM) held at CMC office, he said the relations with Afghanistan are most important for the relations with US because Afghanistan is one of the prisms through which United States was looking to Pakistan.
"United States has perception that terrorism in Afghanistan have roots in Pakistan and 20 out of 70 terrorists groups, existing in Pak-Afghanistan region, are based in Pakistan," he said.
"Although talk over terrorism is recurrent theme, this time, US persuade Taliban to engage in discussions with President Ashraf Ghani and accepting the offer made in second peace talks in Kabul to establish an office in Afghanistan for dialogue. Some progress in this regard has been made but not at that particular point," he maintained.
"US negotiators met with Taliban in Doha where the latter seeks assurance to be treated equally during talks as they are representing major strength of Afghanistan," he apprised.
Sheikh said the figures given by special inspector general for Afghanistan John F Sopko, 58 percent of the Afghanistan territory was controlled by the government and despite advancement through air strikes in several districts, the Talibans were not demoralized and their influence was gradually increasing.
Furthermore, he said IMF and US secretary of state Mike Pompeo was not aiming Pakistan but China; adding that Pak-China relations were the second prism through which we would be perceived by United States. He feared of ISIS existence in Afghanistan, despite US claim of disseminating them with mother of all bombs.
Sheikh was of the view that we wanted Taliban on our soil due to avoid Mullah Sufi like issues. He said foreign policy should be mutually benefited instead of giving less and taking maximum; adding that strength in foreign policy came from domestic policy.
Moreover, he hoped new government would be moving to establish national identity, which was missing. He said although American and EU experts exaggerated Sino-American problem, we must accept it because China was facing internal debt issue and was also reviewing past engagements. Moreover, he said US$ 4 billion oil facility given by Saudi Arabia was offered annually; suggesting Pakistan to remain meticulous over Saudi-Iran conflict and would only play mediator role to avoid sectarianism in the country. A large number of people from different walk of life attended the event.