Why Central Asian states want peace with the Taliban

[FarCenter]

Uzbekistan hosted a two-day Afghanistan peace conference in the capital Tashkent this week. Attending were more than 20 countries – including representatives from Central Asian countries, the United States, Germany, China, Pakistan and Russia.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, his Uzbek counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev and the European Union's top diplomat Federica Mogherini were among the high-ranking officials who participated in the meeting.

With Taliban representatives missing from the event, the scope of the conference was limited, but Uzbekistan and Afghanistan are hoping to strengthen regional consensus to end the 17-year-long violent conflict in Afghanistan.

Kabul has been seeking direct negotiations with the Taliban since 2010, but the militant group has never shown any real interest in talks with Afghan authorities. The jihadists, on the other hand, have expressed desire to talk to US officials, whom they believe hold the key to ending the protracted Afghan war.

Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South and Southeast Asia at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars, believes that Uzbekistan saw the Afghan peace conference as less of an opportunity to demonstrate its willingness to be a key player in launching Taliban talks and more as a chance to gain recognition from the international community as a credible, peace-loving country.

"The previous government in Uzbekistan had a bad global reputation, thanks in great part to human rights abuses, and it was not particularly well received in the West," Kugelman told DW, adding that by taking on a leadership role in the latest effort to kick start peace talks with the Taliban, Tashkent hoped to reinvent itself as a more benign player on the global stage.

For Afghanistan, the conference was about building a stronger consensus around its latest peace offer to the Taliban, recognizing the militant group as a political party.

http://www.dw.com/en/why-central-asian-states-want-peace-with-the-taliban/a-43150911

[msongs]

1. taliban are religionists, meaning no peace possible without total surrender and subjugation nt

[FarCenter]

2. They are also Pashtuns, and their activity can be limited to Pashtun controlled areas.

It's more important to keep IS and other Salafist radicals from converting the Uzbeki, Tajik, and Hazara populations.

Note that Afghans, per se, do not exist as an ethnic group. They seem to be a Western invention.

[Blue_true]

3. Yep, religious extremist are like that. Their way or the highway. nt