LONDON: The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan said yesterday they would work to reach a peace deal within six months, while throwing their weight behind moves for the Taleban to open an office in Doha.
Following talks hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari also urged the hardliners to join the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
But with no Taleban representative at the tripartite talks and with the militants still refusing to talk to Kabul, analysts said the commitment by the three leaders risked being one-sided.
They had a private dinner on Sunday and then full talks on Monday at Cameron’s Chequers country retreat near London, amid growing fears that a civil war could erupt when international troops leave Afghanistan in 2014.
“All sides agreed on the urgency of this work and committed themselves to take all necessary measures to achieve the goal of a peace settlement over the next six months,” they said in a joint statement issued by Cameron’s office.
“They supported the opening of an office in Doha for the purpose of negotiations between the Taleban and the High Peace Council of Afghanistan as part of an Afghan-led peace process,” the statement said.
Karzai had previously shunned the idea of a Taleban office in Doha because of fears that it would lead to the Kabul government being frozen out of talks between the United States and the Taleban.
The joint statement also said that the Afghan and Pakistani leaders had agreed arrangements to “strengthen co-ordination” of the release of Taleban detainees from Pakistani custody.
Afghan peace negotiators have welcomed Pakistan’s release of dozens of Taleban prisoners in recent months, a move they believe could help bring militants to the negotiating table. There was no immediate reaction from the Taleban.
The summit was the third trilateral meeting in a year following meetings in Kabul in July and New York last September — but the first in which Pakistani and Afghan army and intelligence chiefs took part.
Cameron, whose country is the second biggest contributor of troops to Afghanistan with 9,000 troops still in the country, appealed directly to the Taleban to join the reconciliation process.
“Now is the time for everyone to participate in a peaceful, political process in Afghanistan,” he told a press conference after the talks.
Karzai told the press conference he hoped in future to have “very close, brotherly and good neighborly” relations with Pakistan, which has been regularly accused by both Kabul and Washington of helping to destabilize Afghanistan.
Support from Pakistan, which backed Afghanistan’s 1996-2001 Taleban regime, is seen as crucial to peace after NATO troops depart — but relations between the neighbors remain uneasy despite some recent improvements.
Zardari said it was in Islamabad’s interests to support the initiative.
“Peace in Afghanistan is peace in Pakistan. We feel that we can only survive together,” he said. “We cannot change our neighborhood or our neighbors.” Pakistani political and security analyst Hasan Askari dismissed as “too ambitious” the prospect of securing in six months a settlement to end more than 11 years of war.
The lack of Taleban involvement in the talks was a particular problem, he said.
The Taleban in March 2012 suspended contacts with American representatives in Qatar over a potential prisoner exchange and opening a liaison office in the Gulf state, and publicly refuses to negotiate with Kabul.
Askari said the most realistic achievement in London would be better cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose relations for years have been clouded by mutual blame for violence plaguing both countries.
Asked whether there could be a peace deal in six months, Askari said: “I don’t expect that, it would be a major upset of the calculation.”
Afghan-Pak peace deal in six months
Afghan-Pak peace deal in six months
As India claims fourth-largest economy spot, what it means on the ground
- Indian government review says economy grew to $4.19 billion, overtaking Japan
- Claim still needs IMF review as only organized sector counted, economist says
NEW DELHI: When Ramesh Chandra Biswal left his job as a space scientist in the US, he returned to eastern India and ran an agriculture startup on a promise of his country’s rapid economic growth.
Nine years on, as India positions itself as the world’s fourth largest economy, he is still waiting for the promise to come true.
India’s economy was the sixth largest in the world, valued at about $2.6 trillion in 2017, when Biswal launched his Villamart project in his home village in Odisha.
According to calculations in the Indian government’s end-of-year economic review, it has now grown to $4.19 trillion, overtaking Japan’s economy in terms of nominal Gross Domestic Product.
The review also projects that India will overtake Germany to become the world’s third-largest economy within the next three years, trailing only the US and China in economic weight.
But on the ground, Biswal was not sure what the projections meant because they had no impact on his life or business.
“The hype around India becoming the fourth largest economy is not grounded. People cannot relate to that,” he said.
“The number of people here in India is much more than Japan ... We have to improve the per capita income instead of telling the story of being the fourth largest economy.”
Over the years that he has been running his company, Biswal has not noticed much change, but hoped that the news of the country’s growth would at least create a positive hype and motivate everyone.
“People are trying. As an entrepreneur, we are also trying, struggling every day, trying to do something new,” he said.
“I’m getting some respect in society. That way, it is giving me the driving force.”
But not everyone was immediately optimistic. For Sarvesh Sau, a fruit seller in Delhi, it has been increasingly difficult to keep his family afloat.
“Rich people are getting rich, those who have resources ... but a low-income group person like me finds it difficult to manage a decent living despite putting in more than 12 hours of work every day.
“We are a big nation, and we will look big compared to others. Are we able to match Japan?”
The world’s most populous nation, India has about 1.46 billion people and a GDP per capita estimated by the World Bank to be about $2,700. It is about 12 times lower than Japan’s.
Yogendra Kumar, a plumber in Noida, said his income has been rising, but it is consistently outpaced by the cost of living, leaving him feeling poorer over time.
“I have heard that India has become the fourth largest economy, but I don’t know how to react to that. It does not make any difference to our lives. It sounds good that India is growing, but the matter of fact is that for people like me the struggle for survival is more acute now than before,” he said.
“Today I earn more but the inflation takes away all the money, and it makes it difficult to have a comfortable life,” he told Arab News. “Mustard oil was 50 rupees 10 years ago. It is now 200 rupees. A cooking gas cylinder used to cost 500 rupees — now it costs more than double. Everything is so expensive.”
While India’s claim of being the fourth-largest economy is still awaiting review by the International Monetary Fund, Prof. Arun Kumar, a development economist, does not expect it to be confirmed.
“Our GDP data, as the IMF has said, is suspect because it doesn’t include the informal sector ... According to my estimate, we are still the seventh largest economy, just ahead of Italy,” he told Arab News, also estimating India’s actual growth to be much lower than the government’s projection.
“Even though official data shows a 7 percent to 8 percent rate of growth, people realize that it’s not growing so well,” Prof. Kumar said.
“The rate of growth is only of the organized sector, not of the unorganized sector ... The unorganized sector is declining and that is where 94 percent of the employment is.”
