Amin Alemi
Press TV, Kabul
The official opening of the first round of negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant group has brought about hope among Afghans that they will finally sense the silence of guns and the emergence of peace in their country.
In the eyes of war-weary Afghans, the two sides should reach a compromise during the talks.
Apart from optimism about the ongoing peace talks, some in Afghanistan believe that the establishment of peace will be contingent upon meeting the people’s demands; issues such as the government's achievements over the past two decades that are considered as the red line for Afghans.
Almost all regional and international participants at the opening ceremony of the talks called on both negotiating teams to approve an urgent ceasefire and focus on how to shape a power-sharing government under local, regional and international agreements.
The Afghan government seeks to save the ‘republic,’ and the Taliban are, of course, seeking to establish the type of governance they desires – that is an ‘emirate.’
In such circumstances, the people of Afghanistan seem to be against the return of the Taliban's governance system as they have bitter memories of the time the group was ruling over 90 percent of Afghanistan: a time when the Taliban deprived millions of Afghans of their basic rights, such as education and social freedoms.