MIDEAST/INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016

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EU says has support to reviveAfghan’s stalled peace talks

Afghanistan wins aid pledges at Brussels talksBRUSSELS, Oct 5, (Agencies): Regional powers have agreed to try to revive Afghani-stan’s stalled peace process after almost 40 years of confl ict, the EU’s foreign policy chief said on Wednes-day, as the West sought to raise some $13 bil-lion to fund the country through 2020.

Facing a resurgent Taleban 15 years after US forces helped drive the militant group from Ka-bul, more than 70 governments in Brussels promised more financial support, in tandem with NATO’s ongoing military backing.

World powers pledged bil-lions of dollars for war-ravaged Afghanistan until 2020 at talks in Brussels on Wednesday amid fresh calls for the Taleban to make peace 15 years after they were driven from power.

Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani met officials from more than 70 countries and in-ternational groups, including US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN chief Ban Ki-moon, at the conference.

EU foreign policy chief Fed-erica Mogherini announced that the 28-nation bloc will pledge 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) a year and said “I would expect similar levels of engagement from our partners.”

“There will not be any donor fatigue on Afghanistan,” she added.

Mogherini said a dinner of key regional players including China, India and Pakistan on Tues-day night had “found common ground” for the Afghan peace process.

“The European Union will try to facilitate this as much as pos-sible in the coming months,” she said.

Mogherini, who coordinates EU foreign policy, said there was an understanding “to work on a common basis for regional political support for the peace and reconciliation process in Af-ghanistan.”

“Yesterday night we found common ground to support this process with a regional perspec-tive and the European Union will try to facilitate this,” Mogherini said.

There have been several at-tempts in recent years to broker a settlement between the Western-backed government in Kabul and the Taleban, but all have failed. Without the militants at the table, experts say it is hard to envisage a meaningful solution.

Two people briefed on the dinner, attended by US Secre-tary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon among others, told Re-uters that Chinese and Indian officials were willing to con-sider peace talks.

“There are several countries that actually can help come to-gether, and I urge Russia, China, Pakistan, India and Iran to think about the special role that they could play in this region in order to make a major difference ... in reaching peace with the Tale-ban,” Kerry told the donor con-ference on Wednesday.

But there remain divisions about if, or when, to include Taleban militants. Even if they were invited, it is unclear wheth-er the movement would take part.

Afghanistan’s President Mohammad Ashram Ghani (left), High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the Commission Federica Mogherini (center), and Afghanistan’s Chief Executive

Abdullah Abdullah arrive for a meeting on Afghanistan at the EU Headquarters in Brussels on Oct 5. (AFP)

In this photograph taken on Sept 7, 2016, repatriated Afghan refugee children wave as they travel in a packed vehicle preparing to cross the border into Af-ghanistan, at the Torkham crossing point in Pakistan’s tribal Khyber district. Pa-

kistan has provided safe haven for decades for millions. (AFP)

Iranian parliament Speaker snubs German minister

Morocco votes for first time after five years under IslamistsPrime minister says will advance economic reforms if re-elected

TEHRAN, Oct 5, (RTRS): The Speaker of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, cancelled talks with German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel in Tehran on Tuesday after the high-profile visitor had urged Iran to pursue reforms at home and act responsibly in Syria.

Larijani, seen as a moderate conser-vative in Iran, was the highest-ranking figure Gabriel was due to meet on his two-day trip, aimed at boosting trade ties after Tehran’s landmark deal with world powers to scale back its nuclear programme.

No reason was given for the cancel-

lation, a spokeswoman for Gabriel said.Gabriel had on Monday backed re-

forms pursued by President Hassan Rouhani, a pragmatist who faces resis-tance from influential conservatives, saying: “The alternative to the current government is a return to the times of great confrontation.”

RABAT, Oct 5, (Agencies): Morocco will elect a parliament on Friday for the first time since an Islamist-led gov-ernment took office following Arab Spring uprisings that toppled leaders across the region.

The Islamist Justice and Develop-ment Party (PJD) came to power in 2011 after swelling protests prompted concessions from King Mohammed VI, the scion of a monarchy that has ruled the North African country for 350 years.

A new constitution reduced some, though not all, of the king’s near-abso-lute powers as autocratic regimes fell in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Prime Minister Abdelilah Benki-rane’s PJD says a second term would

allow it to continue its limited eco-nomic and social reforms.

Heading a coalition that includes communists, liberals and conserva-tives, it retains considerable support among the urban middle classes that have largely abandoned the left in fa-vour of Islamist parties.

But it has been weakened by rising unemployment and what critics say is a failure to deal with corruption.

The party has faced a string of scan-dals within its ranks including a major drugs bust, a dodgy land-grab deal and the suspension of two vice presi-dents found in a “sexual position” on a beach. It also faces a resurgent liberal opposition Authenticity and Moder-nity Party (PAM), formed in 2008 by

a close adviser to the king.The PAM has poured enormous re-

sources into a campaign criticising the government’s record as “catastrophic” and pledging to roll back the “Islami-sation” of society.

It pitches itself as the defender of women’s rights and liberal social mo-res, and aims to bring more women into parliament, where they hold just 67 out of 395 seats.

The PJD accuses its rival of being the party of the palace, part of a shad-owy “parallel state” controlling politi-cal life.

If it holds on to power, the PJD will remain an essential part of Moroccan politics, “despite the feelings it rouses at the palace and among the globalised

bourgeoisie,” said Pierre Vermeren, a historian of the Maghreb region.

A victorious PJD would try to take the opportunity to gain more space from the monarchy for joint decision-making, he said.

But the decisive clout in Morocco remains in the hands of King Moham-med VI -- regardless of who is in gov-ernment.

“The king is de facto the exclusive decision maker on a series of long-term and strategic matters,” including foreign policy and big infrastructure projects, according to an analysis from the Carnegie Endowment for Inter-national Peace, a Washington-based think tank.

Benkirane said his ruling Islamist

party will advance economic reforms including further rationalisation of subsidies sought by international lend-ers if it wins this week’s parliamentary election.

No party openly challenges King Mohamed’s authority, but Benkirane’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) is looking to consolidate gains in the constitutional monarchy system against rivals who analysts say are closer to the palace.

After leading the ruling coalition for five years, Benkirane’s party is popular for its anti-corruption stance, but has also pushed an austerity programme that has helped overhaul the public fi-nances.

“We are for continuity,” Benkirane

told Reuters at his home in Rabat. “The most important reform that I could not do in my first mandate was to reallo-cate a part of the budget that we used to give to subsidies to the poorest.”

More than its North African neigh-bours, Morocco has been praised by multilateral lenders for controlling the high public spending and subsidised welfare systems that plagued the re-gion for years, even before the Arab Spring uprisings prompted govern-ments to ramp up spending.

Most recently, the government pushed through a pension system re-form that raised the retirement age and increased worker pension contribu-tions. That followed freezes on public hiring, tax and subsidy reforms.

Crackdown against undocumented migrants

Rocket from Gaza hits Israel

Afghan ‘refugees’ return touncertain future in homeland

JERUSALEM, Oct 5, (RTRS): A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit a street in the Israeli border town of Sderot on Wednesday, causing no casualties, police said.

After the attack, Israeli tank shells struck an observation post belonging to the Hamas Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip. Local residents and Hamas-run media said no one was hurt at the position, near the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Hamas controls the Gaza Strip and has observed a de facto ceasefire with Israel since 2014, but small armed cells of Jihadist Salafis still occasionally fire rockets into Israel.

TORKHAM, Pakistan, Oct 5, (AFP): Mohammad Anwar arrived in Pakistan as a child more than 35 years ago but is leaving as a father, his family among the thousands of uprooted Afghan refugees “return-ing” to a war-torn homeland many of them have never seen.

Anwar, disbelieving and grief-stricken, has packed the bric-a-brac of a lifetime onto a truck wildly painted in baroque colours but says he is leaving his heart and soul in Peshawar, the city that sheltered him for decades.

“We can’t forget the time we passed here, we were treated like brothers,” he tells AFP.

“Insha’Allah, we will come here again, this time with passports.”

Pakistan has provided safe haven for decades for millions like Anwar, who fl ed Afghanistan with his family when he was just seven years old, af-ter the Soviet invasion of 1979.

FightBut as the fi ght against the Soviets

morphed into civil war, Taleban rule, the US invasion and the grinding confl ict in Afghanistan today, even Pakistan’s famed hospitality has run out.

Pakistan hosts 1.4 million regis-tered Afghan refugees, according to UNHCR, making it the third-largest refugee hosting nation in the world. A UNHCR offi cial said the agency also estimates a further one mil-lion unregistered refugees are in the country.

Since 2009, Islamabad has repeat-edly pushed back a deadline for them to return, but fears are growing that the latest cutoff date in March 2017 will be fi nal.

Meanwhile refugees are increas-ingly worried about their future in Pakistan amid a security crackdown against undocumented foreigners.

The anxiety, combined with a UN decision to double its cash grant for voluntary returnees from $200 to $400 per individual in June, has seen the fl ow of refugees over the border become a torrent.

More than 200,000 have crossed this year, the vast majority since July — including nearly 98,000 in Sep-tember alone, says UNHCR.

Anwar fi lls out documents at a UNHCR centre outside Peshawar crammed with men in Afghan caps and turbans. Children lie on the fl oor as mothers in veils fan themselves in the steamy heat.

They face an uncertain future in an Afghanistan still at war and already overwhelmed by so many people fl eeing fi ghting that offi cials warn of a humanitarian crisis.

But fi rst they will pass the Torkham frontier, a mountainous outpost where — until this year — border “controls” were more of a suggestion, and thousands crossed each day with impunity. When AFP visited recently a gleaming new gate, constructed in June and reinforced by two kilometres of barbed wire,

funnelled travellers through customs queues and scanning machines.

Pakistani pride in the new facili-ties contrasted with tearful Afghan refugees piling their trucks high not just with household goods, but cattle, tree trunks and scraps that could help build even a mud hut once they reach Afghanistan.

“We spent our best time here,” 45-year-old Khair Muhammad, re-turning after 36 years with 21 mem-bers of his family, told AFP tearfully. His truck was loaded with beds, fans, wood, utensils, and a cow and her calf. “We never thought, never even imagined that we would return in such circumstances,” said 29-year-old Inamullah Khan.

With a resurgent Taleban in control of roughly one third of Af-ghanistan’s districts, many returning refugees will travel no further than Kabul.

Among them is Abdhur Rahman, who left for Pakistan 30 years ago, fl eeing a province which is now buf-feted by Taleban attacks.

He returns aged 70, grey turbanned with his white beard curling over his chest, patriarch of a family of 25.

But the former peasant and anti-Soviet fi ghter from Paktia in the east will fi nd little support in the overstretched capital. Kabul al-ready has one of the highest popu-lation growth rates in the region: some 1,200 people every day, says European Union ambassador Franz-Michael Mellbin.

RefugeeThe UN put the number of

displaced people in the city last month at 265,000, and in 2013 the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) documented 53 informal settlements, little more than timber clinging to the side of mountains with neither water nor electricity. Abdhur Rahman speaks soberly of his last days in Pakistan.

“The police harassed us, they cut the water and electricity in the camp ... it was better to leave,” he says.

But another returnee, Sayed Ka-rim, has lived for months in Kabul “without water, no school, no doc-tor”.

Trapped in limbo with the gates at Torkham closed and his home prov-ince of Baghlan roiled by fi ghting, he remembers his days as a teacher in the refugee camp in Pakistan.

“In Pakistan we had good work. A good life,” he says.Pakistan offi cially hosts the third largest refugee population in the world after Jordan and Turkey, sheltering some 1.4 million regis-tered Afghans and, according to esti-mates, up to a million more residing without documentation. Since 2009, Islamabad has repeatedly pushed back a deadline for Afghan refugees who arrived from the 1980s onwards to return to their home country, but fears are growing that the latest cut-off — March 2017 — will be fi nal.