President Ghani’s Remarks At The Second Conference Of Kabul Process — Kabul

Your presence here is a visible reminder that we are an international community united not only by shared threats, but shared interests and shared opportunities. We stand determined to overcome those threats, expand our shared interests and grasp those opportunities.

The threat of our times is the Fifth Wave of Political Violence and Terrorism. The enemies we face are Transnational Terrorist Networks and Transnational Criminal Organizations. The threat is not only clear and present, but unfortunately increasing and without boundaries.

We, the international community, have analyzed the scale and scope of the threat, and we have drafted numerous UN resolutions and agreements to address the threat, but we have yet to develop a full consensus on taking coordinated action among states to counter this threat. We must have consensus on how to implement the UN strategy to counter global terrorism; we must develop a system to classify international terrorist networks and organizations; and we must develop criteria for dealing with states who rely on terrorist networks as instruments of foreign policy.

Today, I will devote my remarks to articulating a perspective, the vision might be to grant the world to own the future and overcome the recent past through an agenda of hope, peace and cooperation.

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

Thank you.
In this age of virtual connectivity, it is easy to forget the centrality of Afghanistan’s locations in shaping global history.  One of the great scholars on Central Asia, Dr. Frederick Starr, is one of many who has written on the topic.  I would like to share some facts here as a reminder, not because we have nostalgia for the past, but because it allows us to see the possibilities of the future:

1. Afghanistan and Central Asia have the unique distinction that “all the great civilizations on the Eurasian landmass are accessible from Central Asia, and those same civilizations are accessible to one another by land only through Central Asia.”
2. Insulated and protected by a natural barrier on the north-east and north, it has been Afghanistan “that has ever held the landward gates of the Indian subcontinent, allowing the flow of artists, merchants, pilgrims, scholars and soldiers of fortune from the north and west eastwards.”
3. Over 2,500 years of history and archeology show that we functioned not merely as a crossroad of civilizations but, indeed, as a cross-road civilization. The Asian roundabout, where ideas, people, and goods have freely flown and interacted, is another way to describe our place in history, as well as our future potential.

Contrary to the caricature of the land of “endless conflict”, our history is one of long periods of peace and prosperity, punctuated by foreign invasions and subsequent rebuilding.  Both in the 19th and 20th centuries, our lives were ruptured by unwarranted and sudden imperial invasions.  We earned our right as a nation at the crucible of history through immense sacrifice.

We are a people united by cross-cutting ties.  Our identities are situational, ranging from the village and neighborhood to the national level.  Our unity is rooted in our strong sense of equality and deep and abiding belief in justice and fair play.  Every Afghan, regardless of the name group to which he or she belongs, feels equal to another.   We will stand patiently in a line for hours but if one person is shifted to the front, we raise our voices to demand an explanation.  This sense of equality is rooted in our past, as every major city and name group has served as a capital of an empire or leaders of empires or states in the past.  Our sense of justice is derived from our Islamic faith, culture and civilization.  As a 99.9% Muslim country, our faith has always united us in the face of the adversities and allowed us to overcome the seemingly impossible.

I spent my childhood and youth in an environment of peace and security.

During that time, a single unarmed constable had the authority to summon all the elders of a village to the district headquarter; the King’s estates and farms were open to the public and he walked around with a single armed guard;  President Dawood drove himself, followed by a single vehicle at a distance of two kilometers. - Read More

President Ghani’s remarks at the Second Conference of Kabul Process — Kabul

سخنرانی رئیس جمهورغنی در “دومین کنفرانس پروسۀ کابل”