A Pakistani Jirga left for Kabul on Wednesday to attend the joint grand Jirga in Afghanistan, which gets underway from tomorrow.
Islamabad, Aug.8 : A Pakistani Jirga left for Kabul on Wednesday to attend the joint grand Jirga in Afghanistan, which gets underway from tomorrow.
Federal ministers and member parliament are a part of the delegation.
Talking to reporters before the team's departure, Federal Minister for States and Frontier Regions Sardar Yar Muhammad Rind said that Pakistan and Afghanistan are trying to find out ways to establish peace.
Rind said that the grand three-day Jirga would seek solutions to problems facing both countries.
President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will also address the Jirga.
The Jirga is meeting at Kabul's Bagh-i-Bala, and the main question before delegates from Pakistan and Afghanistan would be: whether the participants would be able to deliver on the hopes and aspirations of millions of people living on either side of the Pak-Afghan border?
The Afghans are reportedly looking forward to the event, as they believe the Jirga deliberations could prove instrumental in restoring peace in their war-ravaged country.
Pakistan, on the other hand, is sending its representatives under duress, and has not agreed to UN supervision of the moot.
The Pakistanis have their own misgivings. There is a perception that Kabul would use the Jirga to blame Islamabad for all the ills afflicting Afghanistan.
But beyond the composition and suspicions rankling on both sides, there are other critical questions that beg an explanation.
According to The Dawn, from pure tribal perspective: what would be the mandate of such an assembly? Will the Jirga have the requisite authority, or 'waak' as it is called in Pashto, to decide on matters between conflicting parties?
A Jirga is supposed to comprise neutral people, respected by and acceptable to all parties in a conflict, whose verdict is deemed final and binding on all sides.
To be sure, the Taliban have already announced their opposition to the Jirga, questioning its representative status and its effectiveness in forming an independent opinion.
Some key figures of the Pakistan government have now been openly suggesting talks with the Taliban as a way out of the violence plaguing Afghanistan, much to Kabul's indignation, which considers the insurgents as terrorists.
The question is will the Jirga have the mandate to include or hold talks with the Afghan Taliban.
Analysts have warned that the Jirga runs the risk of turning into a road show or a kind of a seminar that would generate debate and discussion but may produce little or no results to help restore peace to war-torn Afghanistan.
ANI