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May 16th, 2016 
Awake Goy 
nsnbc : Top Diplomats from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States of America are scheduled to meet in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 18. The group will discuss possibilities to start peace talks between the belligerent and other parties that are involved in the war in Afghanistan.
The meeting in Islamabad on May 18 would be the first meeting of the so-called Quadrennial Coordination Group (QCG) since the Taliban refused to participate in direct talks with the central Afghan government in Kabul. The last meeting of the QCG was held in February and an invitation to participate in the QCG meeting in March was extended to the Taliban.
The scheduled meeting is widely considered as one important step towards defusing the situation in the country. The Taliban launched its spring offensive after the talks in February. The government, supported by ISAF – NATO troops for its part, has doubled up on its campaign against the Taliban in some regions of the country.
On April 19 the Taliban carried out a suicide bombing in Kabul that killed 64 and injured another 350. The bombing complicated attempts to bring the belligerent parties to the negotiating table. President Ashraf Ghani addressed parliament on April 25 and said his administration had prioritized the war against Afghanistan.
The hard-liner approach against the Taliban has, however, also many critics. Among them is former president Hamid Karzai. Initially installed by the United States, Karzai has repeatedly stressed that the hard-liner approach against the Taliban and especially the involvement of the U.S. military and networks within Pakistani intelligence and military services is counterproductive.
The Afghan administration of President Ashraf Ghani maintains that it wants the QCG to opt for a military solution against the Taliban. The official Pakistani position recommends, in fact insists on negotiations. Pakistan has been impressing on the Afghani and the U.S. side that the reconciliation process needs to be given a fair chance and more time, said Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz to the Senate.
Aziz added that irreconcilable elements can be targeted after concerted efforts of negotiations have failed. He noted that the Pakistani side hopes to discuss these issues in detail during the upcoming round of the QCG in Islamabad on 18-19 May.
Afghanistan’s Ambassador in Islamabad, Omar Zakhilwal, for his part, said on Sunday Kabul now calls on the QCG to pronounce the Taliban as “irreconcilable because they have publicly rejected the talks. Zakhilwal added that the QCG in its meeting in Kabul had agreed on a roadmap in February and that Kabul hopes the grouping will implement its decisions.
The roadmap is precisely about the steps that the QCG member countries needed to in their respective relevant domains in both during peace talks if they began and also if Taliban refused to join talks. Now that the Taliban publicly refused to join talks and opted for more violence the second scenario is applicable, said Zakhilwal.
A Taliban delegation of political negotiators from the Taliban’s official office in Qatar had arrived in Pakistan in late April for exploratory talks on a possible peace process. However, the Afghan government refused to sit with the Taliban in the wake up of increased Taliban violence.
F/AK – nsnbc 15.05.2016
Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2016/05/15/group-of-four-to-discuss-prospects-for-peace-in-afghanistan/
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