Afghan Factions Give Tentative OK to Peace, Power Sharing

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan —  Afghanistan’s warring factions agreed in principle Sunday to a peace deal that would create a coalition government in the strife-weary nation, offering the hope of peace after two decades of fighting.

The agreement is the first on a shared government for the Central Asian nation, but thorny questions remain over how power would be shared and whether all factions will lay down their arms.

Sunday’s announcement was greeted with caution in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where people have prayed for an end to a war that has claimed as many as a million lives and has touched virtually everyone in the country.

“People in Afghanistan are thirsty for peace like a man in the desert is thirsty for water,” said a Kabul shopkeeper, Mono Gul.

The U.N.-brokered talks involved the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement, which rules about 90% of the country, and the northern-based alliance of opposition groups, which controls the remaining 10%.

Both sides met for four days in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan. The U.N. Special Mission to Afghanistan said in a statement that the talks had taken place “in a spirit of sincerity, mutual respect and frankness.”

At a news conference after the Ashgabat talks, representatives from both sides described the agreement as a breakthrough.

“If the problem of forming a coalition government is solved, the cease-fire problem will be resolved automatically,” one delegate said, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency. He was not identified.

The U.N. said the two sides had agreed, among other things, to form a shared executive, legislature and judiciary, and to release 20 prisoners each through the International Committee of the Red Cross.