EU discouraged by talks with warring factions

A European Union (EU) mission to Afghanistan has concluded that the ruling Taliban and opposition Northern Alliance have “no interest in alleviating the suffering of Afghan people”. Returning from a visit to opposition-held areas this week and to the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in early May, the EU on Thursday said it was clearly “discouraged”.

The two missions were engaged in a bid to present the EU’s position on Afghanistan and to call on both warring sides to stop fighting. But Peter Tejler, Swedish Ambassador to Pakistan, representing the presidency of the EU, told IRIN on Thursday: “We were very disappointed with the response we have had from both sides”, with neither willing to engage in a peace process.

In the northern town of Faizabad on Tuesday, the team met the ousted Afghan president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was toppled by the Taliban in 1996. Despite reports that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan had been virtually eliminated, the delegation said there were still signs of it growing. This was strongly denied by Rabbani. “We travelled on the road up to Tajikistan and saw a lot of poppy,” Tejler said. However, the former Afghan leader disagreed that many new areas in the north were under cultivation.

Following the Taliban’s outright ban on poppy production last year, the EU mission sought to look at ways of assisting farmers who were now lacking a source of income. Tejler said the EU was increasingly concerned about the amount of drugs from Afghanistan being sold to children in Europe.

The Northern Alliance response, according to Tejler, to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians was that “it was their way of defending themselves against foreign aggression, meaning the Taliban, supported by outsiders”. The Northern Alliance also admitted laying new land mines in a bid to “defend themselves”, Tejler said.

The delegation discussed the issue of the arms embargo which the EU imposed on Afghanistan in 1996. However, the EU claims there was still evidence that much weaponry support was being given to both warring sides. Tejler suggested that the Northern Alliance had been given arms by external countries, which he declined to name.
Despite not making any commitments to peace negotiations, Rabbani reportedly had “done some thinking as to what extent a peace process could be implemented”, the Swedish ambassador said.

Earlier, the EU stressed that when a durable peace effort was in place in Afghanistan, the European body would be ready to assist in the reconstruction of the country. “We are committed to help restructuring Afghanistan, but we can only do it if the war ends. However, it is up to the warring factions to find a solution,” Tejler maintained.

The European Commission and the EU member states have been heavily engaged in providing Afghanistan with humanitarian aid over the past 10 years and have spent over 400 million euros in basic lifeline support. “No deadlines were set for a response to the EU position. We were not there to start a peace process or to compete against the UN, merely to present the EU’s position on the situation in Afghanistan,” Tejler said.