KABUL, Dec 4: The Taliban’s boycott of the Bonn conference on Afghanistan raises grave doubts about what progress it can make towards peace, experts say.

The leaders of the country’s decade-long resistance will not attend Monday’s international talks in Germany, saying the meeting will “further ensnare Afghanistan into the flames of occupation”.

Islamabad is also boycotting the event after Nato air strikes killed 24 Pakistani troops last week.

The absence of two major players has dampened expectations of progress on reconciliation among ordinary Afghans as well as officials.

Fazal Rahim, a money exchanger in Kabul, said: “The Afghan government and the international backers should encourage the Taliban to take part in this conference because the Taliban are part of this land and without their participation, the Bonn conference will not give positive results.”

Their non-attendance also risks making Bonn part of what Britain’s former ambassador to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, called the ‘charade’ of international conferences on Afghanistan, dogged by “diplomacy for diplomacy’s sake”.

Nato and the UN may dispute whether violence is up or down in Afghanistan, but frequent attacks on western and government targets in Kabul have fed perceptions that security is declining.

“What everybody expects is to find ways to bring security and stability to Afghanistan,” said Ahmad Wali, a student in Kabul.

With foreign capitals determined to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2014, diplomats in Kabul earlier this year talked up the possibility of the Taliban attending Bonn as part of a single Afghan delegation.

But such hopes came crashing down after tentative contacts collapsed and the assassination of President Hamid Karzai’s peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani — blamed on the Taliban — derailed any prospects of progress.

Diplomats now say the West’s relationship with Afghanistan after 2014 and the transition to Afghan control will dominate the conference agenda.

“I’m not expecting a huge amount on reconciliation,” Britain’s ambassador to Kabul, William Patey, told reporters.

“I’m not expecting much other than an affirmation that the Afghan government, supported by the international community, stands ready to talk peace and reconciliation with the Taliban when and if they’re ready.”

Another western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, was more blunt. “Nothing will happen at Bonn regarding the Taliban,” he said.

Organisers are playing down expectations that the conference will rival one exactly 10 years ago which established an interim administration led by Mr Karzai and mapped out a roadmap for elections.

Soon after that conference, the Taliban surrendered Kandahar, their heartland and last major Afghan stronghold, on Dec 7, 2001.

But some argue that decisions taken at the 2001 Bonn conference caused some of the problems facing the country today.

The ‘original sin’ in 2001 was not to have the Taliban at Bonn, author Ahmed Rashid quotes the former UN special representative to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, as saying, in the book “Descent Into Chaos”.

“The tough work on resolving conflicts like these necessarily takes place behind the scenes,” Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress think-tank, wrote last month.

Open meetings “are the least likely arenas to address some of the thorniest issues at the core of the conflict, including the role played by neighbours such as Pakistan and Iran and the diplomatic strategy for dealing with (the Taliban).”

Karzai’s appeal

Meanwhile, President Karzai appealed to delegates attending the Bonn conference to support Afghanistan with financial and military aid for a decade after troops withdraw to ensure a stable future, in a magazine interview on Sunday.

With concern about security after international troops leave the war-ravaged country at the end of 2014, poverty a major problem for many Afghans and a drugs trade that is still thriving, the mood is sober.

“Afghanistan will certainly need help for another 10 years — until around 2024... we will need training for our own troops. We will need equipment for the army and police and help to set up state institutions,” Mr Karzai told Der Spiegel.

He criticised Pakistan for its lack of help in achieving reconciliation. “Until now they have refused to help with talks with the Taliban leadership,” he told the weekly, adding some people wanted the Taliban to remain an influence in Afghanistan. “If that doesn’t change, there won’t be talks.”

But German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Pakistan still wanted stability in Afghanistan despite its boycott of the talks.

“I have the impression Pakistan not only wants to cooperate in Afghanistan’s stabilisation process but that it is in its own interests,” he said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio.

Pakistan wants peace

Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan’s High Commissioner to Britain, said Pakistan wanted peace in its neighbouring country.

“(Prime Minister Yousaf Raza) Gilani ... has reiterated that Pakistan strongly supports stability, peace and prosperity in Afghanistan and remains bound by international efforts for Afghanistan’s development,” he wrote in an email.—Agencies