'Insurgents will soon have no excuse for fighting'
18 January, 2013
KABUL: Insurgents will no longer have any excuse to continue their violent attacks after US forces hand Bagram prison fully to Afghan forces and the transition of the country's security is complete under the sovereign Afghan government, High Peace Council (HPC) Secretariat chief said. "They [insurgents ] say that foreigners are controlling prisons, the country's air space is under foreign control, so they were fighting. Now we've agreed on such issues [for Afghan control], therefore there is no excuse for them to fight anymore," Head of HPC Secretariat Masoom Stanekzai said at a conference in Kabul on Tuesday. His statement comes after the Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to the US saw the two countries agree on a number of important security issues which will hand more control to the Afghan forces earlier. Stanekzai's comments echo those of Karzai who suggested in a press conference on Monday that there will be less insurgency once the foreign forces withdraw. Karzai said that after 2014 the country will be more peaceful and stable. Stanekzai added that the time has come for the insurgents to desist from violence and negotiate, indicating that the opening of a Taliban political office in Qatar for negotiations promised more success in this. End.
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