Thirteen members of Afghanistan’s parliament, an Afghan governor “and a variety of political parties and armed groups” have held the second in a series of meetings in the Maldives, according to news network Al Jazeera.
Press Secretary at the President’s Office, Mohamed Zuhair, on Thursday confirmed that the peace talks were taking place and all involved in the talks had valid passports and visas.
The Maldives is one of the few countries to provide Afghan nationals a visa on arrival.
“None of the representatives involved are listed in UN or other international travel blacklists,” Zuhair said, noting that the MNDF was aware of the meeting. The Al Jazeera report observed that US and NATO were not represented at the talks and that while it was interested the discussions, Afghan government had not officially endorsed them.
Al Jazeera’s report contained footage of the talks and of man the network said had arrived at the last minute “claiming to be a member of the Taliban.”
The representatives told Al Jazeera that their presence at the meeting, which the Maldivian media speculated was being held at Paradise Island Resort, was not official.
The event was organised by Almayoun Jarir, the son in law of former Mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who is one of the three key leaders of the armed opposition in Afghanistan.
Topics of discussion included the need for fresh elections, and the future of foreign troops in the country. The report noted that one of the Afghan MPs who attended was female.
Besides the ease of visa issuance, the Maldives was chosen as the venue for the three day talks “because it is considered neutral ground for all countries [involved]” Al Jazeera said. “It is also an example of what peace can bring to an islamic country.”
The Maldives will formalise its counter-terrorism agreements with India after renewed fears that Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is trying to establish a base in remote parts of the Maldives.
The LeT was implicated in the terror attacks in Mumbai on 26 November 2008 in which gunmen entered the city by sea and killed at least 173 people and wounded 308. It is considered a terrorist organisation by India, the United States, the UK and Russia.
Covering the story today, Indian newspaper The Economic Times noted that Sultan Park bomber Moosa Inas was linked to the LeT and had travelled to Kerala before the bombings, a popular recruiting ground for the group.
Indian news portal Rediff.com today quoted Indian intelligence bureau sources as saying that the LeT “has nearly 1,000 operatives active in the Maldives”, and that there was no way the group’s operations “can be curbed unless there is very good intelligence sharing with the Maldives.”
The intelligence sources claimed that in the last three months “there has been an increase in LeT activites in the Maldives, and several persons from [the LeT’s] Kerala group have slipped into the country and are busy setting up operations there.”
India could ill-afford a slip in its Maldives policy, given the “extreme aggression” of the LeT group, the sources told Rediff.
The notion of a thousand LeT operatives active in the Maldives “may be an exaggeration”, said the Maldivian president’s press secretary Mohamed Zuhair, “but there may be some truth in it.”
Minister for Home Affairs Mohamed Shihab is currently in India meeting his counterpart P Chidambaram to draw up a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the two countries that will be signed in April.
First Secretary at the Indian High Commission to the Maldives, Naryan Swamy, said the agreement would formalise existing arrangements with the Maldives but the details would have to wait until Shihab returned.
Zuhair said the MoU was “very important because it gives notice that the Maldives will not allow terrorist operations here.”
“The Maldives is very important to India’s security – the Mumbai bombers attacked via sea,” Zuhair said. “The sea is India’s vulnerable underbelly because there are so many entry points, and the Maldives can be very helpful with that because every day we have 1,500 fishing vessels sometimes 70-100 kilometres out to sea. If they see any suspicious vessels they can coordinate the information through various centres in the Maldives.”
The system appeared to work, Zuhair said, because after the president’s speeches following the Mumbai bombing several poaching vessels were apprehended based on information from fishing boats.
India was already assisting the Maldives to establish a chain of coastal radars stations across the country’s atolls, he said, which will be networked with India’s own radar network.
Zuhair acknowledged that such defence cooperation might “concern” countries like China, but he noted that “of all our neighbours India is the natural country of choice to assist the Maldives.”
Last week Al Jazeera reported that a group seven fighters linked to the Taliban met in the Maldives with Afghan MPs to discuss an ambitious peace plan whereby Taliban soldiers would be paid to put down their arms. Al Jazeera’s report claimed the fighters chose the Maldives as the venue for the talks because it was “the only place they felt safe.”
Zuhair emphasised that the Maldives “will not allow terrorists to operate in the country and put the Maldives’ and our neighbours’ peace and security at risk.
A group of Afghan MPs, “a government official” and seven people linked to the Taliban met in the Maldives last weekend for secret talks, according to a report by Al Jazeera in Afghanistan.
According to the report, the talks were part of an ambitious plan to bring peace to the war-torn country by offering cash, jobs and incentives to Taliban fighters in exchange for laying down their arms.
Afghan parliament member Ubaid Ullah Achackzat, one of the MPs who reportedly visited the Maldives last week, told Al Jazeera the meeting was an effort “to find a third way, a way for the foreigners to leave [Afghanistan], with the possibility of merging the Taliban with the government and the possibility of a cease fire – there are lots of issues.”
Seven of the men were reportedly part of an armed opposition group linked to the Taliban and held in high respect by the Taliban’s leadership, Achackzat said.
The Al Jazeera report claimed the Taliban selected the Maldives as the venue for the meeting “because it was the only place the fighters felt safe.”
“I believe that is a compliment to the Maldivian government and our pluralist policies,” said the president’s press secretary, Mohamed Zuhair, adding that he did not feel the comment would negatively affect international perception of the Maldives.
“Our government has a policy to include followers of all sects of Islam,” he said.
“For years other versions of Islam have been stifled [in the Maldives]. The president has said democracy is the best answer to keep fundamentalists at check.”
Assistant controller of Immigration Ibrahim Ashraf expressed a different opinion.
“If this so-called group of Afghans had a link to the Taliban, that is in no way safe for the Maldives,” he said.
“If people from internationally recognised groups such as the Taliban or other institutions keep coming to the Maldives, that is quite dangerous.”
Zuhair acknowledged that the government had received reports of sightings of “a group of people who look like the Taliban wandering around the streets of Male’.”
“Our stance is that the fact people happen to look like the Taliban doesn’t mean they should be labelled that way,” he said.
He admitted the government had noted the arrival of “a group of 20 people from Afghanistan” who were “quite quite closely monitored by the concerned authorities.”
“They apparently conducted a meeting amongst themselves,” he said, emphasising that the group had not associated with any group in the Maldives.
Ashraf confirmed the government had received some information about the group, but would not say whether this came from inside or outside the country.
“We do have a watch list and a very good system in place,” he said. “Those who are flagged would not be allowed into the country.”
He would not say whether the visitors were flagged.
“A lot of people come to Maldives and nobody needs a visa, whether they are Afghan or Israeli,” he said. “To my knowledge, they have now left [the country].”
State Minister for Defence Mohamed Muiz Adnan said he was not aware of the group’s arrival until he “saw it in the newspaper” and had no knowledge of the meeting that apparently took place.
Regarding the Taliban fighters considering the Maldives to be ‘safe’, Muiz commented that “irrespective of who says it, anywhere in the world a safe environment is good for everybody.”
An international conference on the Afghanisatan’s future is currently being held in London. Al Jazeera reports that Japan, the United States and Britain are rumoured to be spearheading a proposal to ‘bribe’ Taliban fighters to disarm and turn over to the government’s side.
Japan is said to be providing most of the money, thought to be between US$500 million and US$1 billion over the next five years, a far cheaper option than the annual $30 billion currently being spent by the US on its military ‘push’.
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