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New demands threaten peace pact with Afghan militant group

Afghan police soldiers inspect the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, June 20, 2016. At least a dozen Nepalese security guards of a foreign logistic company were killed Monday when a Taliban suicide bomber targeted their minibus in the Afghan capital, interior ministry and an Afghan security official said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)
Afghan police soldiers inspect the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, June 20, 2016. At least a dozen Nepalese security guards of a foreign logistic company were killed Monday when a Taliban suicide bomber targeted their minibus in the Afghan capital, interior ministry and an Afghan security official said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul) Afghan police soldiers inspect the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, June 20, 2016. At least a dozen Nepalese security guards of a foreign logistic company were killed Monday when a Taliban suicide bomber targeted their minibus in the Afghan capital, interior ministry and an Afghan security official said. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul)

By Associated Press 3 min read

ISLAMABAD (AP) – An Afghan militant group has issued new impossible-to-meet demands to sign a peace agreement, effectively scuttling the first such deal to be signed by the Afghan government, officials negotiating the deal said Monday.

An official negotiating the deal between the armed wing of the Hezb-i-Islami group, led by former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the Afghan government said the three conditions include cancelling security pacts with the United States, a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and that it be signed by the Afghan state and not the current Unity Government.

Ata-ul Rahman Saleem, deputy head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, said the two sides had reached a draft agreement several weeks ago and all that remained to finalizing the agreement was Hekmatyar’s signature.

Hekmatyar is on the U.S. terrorist list and participated, along with many former warlords in positions of power today in Afghanistan, in the killing of thousands of people in Kabul during the 1992-1996 civil war.

Instead Hekmatyar tweaked the agreement, adding the three additional demands, a member of the Hezb-i-Islami negotiating team told The Associated. Tasked with carrying his fresh demands to Kabul was Hekmatyar’s leading peace emissary, Amin Karim, as well as his son Habib-ur Rahman.