Petersberg was host in 2001 Germany suggests Afghanistan peace conference in Bonn
Bonn · A special envoy has brought Bonn into the discussion for a possible Afghanistan peace summit. The chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag says it could happen this summer.
It has been more than 16 years since the foundation was laid for a peace process in Afghanistan. The conference took place on the Petersberg, the historical hotel which sits in the Siebengebirge mountain range on the right bank of the Rhine, just across from Bonn. In December 2001, the first conference concerning the war-torn country took place there. A second conference followed at the end of 2011 in Bonn. Now, there could soon be another conference here as Bonn is in discussion as the venue for a new international Afghanistan meeting. This was suggested by the German special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Markus Potzel, on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Afghan peace conference in Kabul. German Deputy Ambassador in Kabul, Andreas von Brandt sent out the following tweet in English: "Markus Potzel offered a third Bonn conference on Kabul Process II to support the Afghan peace process."
The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag (German Parliament) , Norbert Röttgen (CDU), responded to a GA inquiry saying that a third Bonn Afghanistan conference could take place this summer. "Time is short," says Röttgen. Bonn has "tradition as a place that allows such talks". Röttgen emphasized that the military mission in the country, which has been struck by civil war, had to be "intensively politically accompanied". All parties involved knew that peace in the Hindu Kush could not be achieved by military means alone, according to Röttgen. He also called for including the neighboring states.
The Foreign Office in Berlin stated that it was not about "issuing a specific invitation in the coming weeks of this process to a conference in Bonn". A spokesman said that if the internal Afghan reconciliation process was completed, one could "imagine" in principle to invite the involved parties to Bonn - "where it began in 2001".
Meanwhile, there is movement in the internal peace process in Afghanistan. In Kabul, President Aschraf Ghani offered the radical Islamic Taliban a ceasefire and other far-reaching concessions at a peace summit. If the Taliban, which had not been invited to the conference, embarked on a peace process, they should also be recognized as a political group, Ghani said Wednesday. In addition, if desired, the constitution could be revised. (Orig. text: Kai Pfundt, Delphine Sachsenröder. Translation: ck)
