Afghanistan: Afghan government signs draft peace deal with insurgent faction of Hezb-e-Islami
“Fortunately, after two years of negotiations between Afghanistan’s High Peace Council and the Hezb-e Islami, the peace negotiations have been successfully completed, and an agreement between both sides has been finalized”, the Afghan High Peace Council, the presidentially appointed body tasked with pursuing a peace settlement with militant groups, said in a statement.
The deal signed on Thursday with warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is the country’s first peace agreement since the Taliban launched their insurgency in 2001, after being driven from power in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
But he is remembered mostly for his role in the bloody civil war of the 1990s, when the Hezb-e-Islami clashed violently with other mujahideen factions in the struggle for control of the capital, Kabul.
Afghan National Security Adviser Haneef Atmar announced a deal on Twitter shortly after it was signed on Thursday.