Handout photo: Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla arrives in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Dec. 23, 2020.
DECEMBER 23, 2020
Kabul. Former vice president Jusuf Kalla arrived in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday morning local time to meet invitation by the host government, who seeks his advice about peacemaking efforts involving the warring camps.
Indonesian Ambassador to Afghanistan Arief Rachmand said Kalla directly headed to the Haram Sarai Palace for a series of meeting with local leaders upon his arrival.
“Mr. JK’s arrival is long overdue to help find solution for the peace accord in Afghanistan,” Arief said in a statement.
A spokesman for Kalla said the former vice president has been actively encouraging peace talks in Afghanistan since he was in office. President Joko Widodo also visited the country in January 2018 for talks with his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani.
The ongoing visit is at the consent of his successor Ma’ruf Amin, who supports the initiative and even adds some materials for the discussion, according to Kalla’s spokesman Husain Abdullah.
He didn’t name the Afghan officials who held talks with Kalla.
In his home country, Kalla was instrumental in brokering peace between the government and rebellion movement in Aceh in 2004, when he was the vice president during the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono presidency.
The peace talks in Aceh began in the wake of the December 2004 devastating tsunami that ravaged the province and killed more than 200,000 people.
Kalla also initiated the peace accord between Christians and Muslims in the restive Central Sulawesi town of Poso in 2001, when he was the coordinating minister for people’s welfare.
The peace agreement was achieved during talks in the town of Malino in neighboring South Sulawesi and is known as the Malino Declaration.
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