Jamiat will not remain indifferent on peace efforts

KABUL (Tolo New): Former vice president Mohammad Younus Qanooni, who was one of the participants of the 2001 Bonn Conference, said the Jamiat-e-Islami party of Afghanistan, to which he belongs, will not stay indifferent to the peace process as it supports efforts to end the conflict through a political solution.

Addressing an event on the 3 Hoot uprising, a week of major civil unrest in Kabul in February 1980, Qanooni said that Jamiat-e-Islami and the people have made the most sacrifices in the war, but they still support the peace talks with the Taliban despite a delay in the process.

“The peace process will move forward and reconciliation will be done, but the way the reconciliation takes form and the way the peace process proceeds are important issues about which the Jamiat-e-Islami party of Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan and the grieving Kabulis will not remain indifferent,” Qanooni said. Reacting to recent remarks by Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Qanooni accused Hekmatyar of promoting disunity and said he should distance himself from what he was in the past.

“Mr. Engineer (Hekmatyar), the history has changed, you are in the past,” he said. Qanooni said that Kabul residents and the 3 Hoot uprising had a key role in defeating the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. “More than 6,000 people–and according to some eyewitnesses of that time, more than 10,000–were martyred at that time,” said Mohammad Matin Monis, a university lecturer. The 3 Hoot uprising happened two months after the Soviet intervention and continued for three days before it was suppressed by Soviet troops.