Afghan President Ashraf Ghani dissolves High Peace Council's secretariat

The President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani has dissolved the secretariat of High Peace Council, according to local media reports. The Presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqqi has been reported to announce that President Ghani has issued a decree for the dissolution of the High Peace Council's secretariat adding that the authorities of the Council have been entrusted to the Ministry of State for Peace.

Earlier there were reports that the High Peace Council has been dissolved but the Presidential spokesman later corrected the report and said only the secretariat of the Council has been dissolved. The Council also posted the clarification on its Twitter account.

بر مبنای فرمان مقام عالی ریاست جمهوری، دارالانشای شورای عالی صلح لغو شده است. شورای عالی صلح در جایش باقیست و در آینده نزدیک اصلاحات در آن می آید.HPC Secretariat is dissolved by a Presidential decree. High Peace Council itself is functional and will be reformed soon.

— High Peace Council (@AfghanistanHPC) July 27, 2019

The HPC was established by Hamid Karzai under the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Program in the year 2010. The purpose of its establishment was to negotiate with the Taliban.

The Council was initially chaired by former President of Afghanistan Burhanuddin Rabbani until his assassination in 2011. Later, the peace council was run by the incumbent Acting Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, the founder of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan Sayed Ahmad Gailani – who died in 2017 – and former Vice President Mohammad Karim Khalili.

The High Peace Council had different offices in various provinces of Afghanistan where the members of the council were trying to encourage armed militants to join the peace process.

The decision has come amid efforts by the Afghan government and its international allies, mainly the United States, to find a political settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan.