US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged Afghanistan’s Taliban militants to follow the recent example of a notorious warlord and make an honourable peace with the Kabul government.
Mr. Kerry told an international donor conference in Brussels today. He said that there is a path toward an honourable end to the conflict that the Taliban have waged, it is a conflict that cannot be won in the battlefield.
US Secretary of State said a peace deal signed last month by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who heads the Hezb-i-Islami group and was a key figure in Afghanistan’s civil war in the 1990s, was a model for what might be possible.
He said that a peace deal would in fact achieve the Taliban’s aim of expelling foreign forces from Afghanistan, 15 years after a US-led invasion drove the Islamist group from power.
Mr Kerry said a political settlement negotiated with the Afghan government is the only way to end the fighting, ensure lasting stability, and achieve a full drawdown of international military forces, which is their goal.
He added their goal of ridding Afghanistan of external forces will not come by the continued insurgency, it will come by peace.