I'll try to be very quick.
In regard to what you noted about development and having more balance in terms of the military development work, I completely agree with you. In fact, I think one of the shortcomings in the last five years has been that there has been a great deal of attention on the political process without adequate attention paid to reconstruction. In the absence of real and tangible changes in people's lives, you're not going to see people continue to strongly advocate for this peace process, as we've seen. They've been doing it with the hope that it's going to translate into real changes in their lives.
In terms of where the parliament is and how much power it has, it just celebrated its one-year anniversary. It's a mason institution in a country that hasn't had institutions in a substantial way for the last three decades. I think we have to be aware of that.
In terms of the role it plays, I think right now it's more at a national level in terms of a national dialogue. In the long run I think it's going to be important in terms of, hopefully, national reconciliation.
But you're right, at the local level what counts right now is the local institutions more than the national institutions. I do think that whether you're talking about shuras or jirgas, which are largely assemblies of men in most areas, those are significant parties that you have to talk to.
I will reinforce the point I made before: you shouldn't just simply conclude that because these are the traditional mechanisms that work, women cannot be included. As my colleague said, women are active, they are present, they have very strong perspectives as to what should be done, and their voices should not be excluded. So make sure, just to reiterate, that you have women on your delegation who do reach out to the women in the community. That's going to be very important.
In terms of negotiation with the Taliban, I'm really glad you brought that up, so that my point is clear. I certainly think there should be efforts to reach out to the Taliban. We have to make a distinction between the Taliban...there are moderate Taliban. Perhaps even make a greater distinction. There are the Taliban who are foot soldiers who are in it for the money. There are Taliban who've been opportunistic, who have simply joined the bandwagon when it has been conducive to their political gains at one point or another. Then there are the hardline ideological Taliban, like Mullah Omar and those in the leadership. Those distinctions are very important to make.
In the last several years, yes, the President has repeatedly made appeals to the Taliban to come and join the government, and I think that should be commended. In fact, the Taliban are representatives in Parliament, as well as a number of savoury and unsavoury characters. We also have a national reconciliation process in the President's office, where there is a formal process in place, led by Mr. Mojaddedi, to bring the Taliban in. Those efforts should be promoted. I also agree that one of the shortcomings of the Bonn process was the exclusion of the Taliban.
My point was going to discussions where I've heard that the way to address or to resolve the situation in Afghanistan, or to disentangle the international community from the Taliban, is simply by making a deal with the Taliban, where they get a few of the provinces and the rest of the country is left as it is. That, I would again say, is unrealistic.
In regard, finally, to Safia Siddiqi, she's a member of parliament, a very vocal and active member of parliament, and she has been doing quite a bit of work. In terms of her role, of how powerful she is, again it goes back to what the parliament is. Despite the fact that, yes, it's still a weak organization, I think overall in the country people have been impressed at the extent to which the parliament has been active. It's been limited, and there has been some frustration at the same time by those who anticipated that once we had a parliament in place there would be significant changes. But it is a parliament where they are quite earnest about playing a significant role in the process, particularly in terms of monitoring the government, in terms of being able to become a better advocate.
I think those types of efforts should be supported by the international community and that their capacity should be strengthened in this regard.