Afghanistan - Spanta Criticizes Ghani for Calling Taliban 'Political Opposition'

President Ashraf Ghani's recent reference to the Taliban as "political opposition" was rebuked by former National Security Advisor Rangeen Dadfar Spanta on Thursday. The former presidential advisor said Ghani's terminology was politicized and indicated weakness in the government's stance on the militants.

Spanta maintained that the term "political opposition" should be reserved for those who oppose the government through political means, not by killing Afghan soldiers and policemen and committing atrocities against civilians.

"They are terrorist groups and kill our people and security personnel and resort to murder," Spanta said on Thursday. "We can't call them our political opponents, because political opponents are those who oppose or criticize the government through political means," he added.

Yet debate over the terminology used by Afghan leaders to refer to the Taliban and other insurgent groups is nothing new. Former President Hamid Karzai, Spanta's former boss, was often criticized in Parliament and among the Afghan security forces for calling the Taliban militants "brothers" in apparent attempt to build good will and advance peace talks.

For his part, Spanta says that restoration of longstanding peace and security are fundamental aspirations of the Afghan people, but that the government must negotiate with the Taliban with a clear strategy and those responsible for the deaths of innocent Afghans cannot be called political opponents.

"If we say it like this, it means that we call a tank a plane, and that is forging a completely fraudulent concept."

Meanwhile, Ghani's spokesman Nazifullah Salarzai responded to the criticism by saying that the government would only negotiate with those who act in political opposition to the government. "Political disagreements are resolved through political channels, a review will be conducted for those that resort to violence," Salarzai said.

Reconciliation talks with the Taliban became a focus of Karzai's last years in office. However, none of the government's attempts were successful. Spanta says that if the same policies and strategies prevail, it will be impossible to build sustainable peace throughout the country.