Afghan Pre
sident Ashraf Ghani has
appointed senior leader Mohammad Umer Daudzai as his special representative for Pakistan, a pre
sidential announcement said on Monday.
Daudzai has served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan and Iran, interior minister and chief of staff to former Pre
sident Hamid Karzai.
Sources in Kabul say DaudzaiR
17;s main responsibility would be coordination with Pakistan on the peace process and to explore ways for improving relations between the two countries.
This is the first time Afghanistan has
appointed a special representative for Pakistan, who will be based in capital Kabul.
Pre
sident Ghani
appointed his special envoy for Pakistan weeks after Pakistan also
appointed Mohammad Sadiq as Prime Minister’s Special Representative for Afghanistan.
Appointments of special envoys by leadership of the two countries would be helpful to bring the tense relationship back on track at a time when their cooperation is required for the peace process.
Kabul’s refusal to release hundreds of more Taliban prisoners has created hurdles for the intra-Afghan dialogue. Afghan officials claimed nearly 600 Taliban prisoners are involved in murder and ot
her major crimes and the government cannot free them.
Who is Daudzai: Daudzai was born on October 12, 1957 in the Shomali valley, north of Kabul city, to a locally prominent and religious family in the Qarabagh District of Kabul Province.
From August 2003, Mr. Daudzai was invited by Pre
sident Hamid Karzia to serve as the Chief of Staff to the Pre
sident. He served in this position until 2005 when he was
appointed as Ambassador to Iran.
In January 2007, he returned to assume his positions as the Chief of Staff to Pre
sident Karzai for a second term and he remained in this position until 2011 when he moved on to assume the role of Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan in order to assist with the peace process.
He returned to Kabul in August 2013 and was voted by the Afghan Parliament as Minister of Interior to oversee security and political transition of 2014. He left the position of the Minister of Interior in December 2014 after serving under Pre
sident Ghani for two months.
Mr. Daudzai then became fully active in the political arena where he led a wide range of youth, tribal and religious networks. He was considered one of the more serious potential pre
sidential candidates for the pre
sidential elections 2019. He is a foun
ding member and head of the Political and International Relations committee of the countryR
17;s major political coalition called the Afghanistan Protection and Stability Council APSC.
Mr. Daudzai attended the Doha meeting in late January 2016 where he met face to face with the Taliban’s political representatives. As a follow up to the Doha meeting Mr. Daudzai together with a number of prominent elite politicians and tribal elders formed the Afghan Peace Jirga to mediate between the Afghan Government and the Taliban. The High Peace Council and the Taliban Qatar office have endorsed the role of the Afghan Peace Jirga to mediate. At a very critical stage in 2018, Pre
sident Ghani invited Mr. Daudzai to become his Special Envoy for Regional Consensus building and to head the Secretariat of the High Peace Council. In anticipation of the pre
sidential election 2019 he accepted pre
sident Ghani’s invitation to head his campaign as the pre
sidential candidate.
He was Chief of Pre
sident Ghani’s Campaign in pre
sidential election 2019. He served from September 2018 to July 2019 as Pre
sident’s Special Envoy for Regional Consensus Building on Peace in Afghanistan and Head of Secretariat to the High Peace Council HPC.
From August 2013 up to December 2014, Daudzai had served as Minister of Interior, during the challenging Afghan pre
sidential election, 2014.
He served Afghan Envoy to Pakistan from April 2011 to August 2013 soon after the
appointment of the High Peace Council to lead dialogue with Taliban. Pre
sident Hamid Karzai dispatched Daudzai as Special Envoy to Pakistan to secure Pakistan’s cooperation in the peace process. He served as the Afghan Ambassador in Pakistan for two years.
During the Soviet invasion of the 1980s, he joined the Hezb-e-Islami Party and actively participated in the Anti-Soviet resistance. Upon leaving the party, he began to work as a humanitarian worker with international aid organizations such as Save the Children Fund and Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and ultimately he joined the United Nations in 1996. In 2001, he moved to Geneva, Switzerland where he worked until 2003 as a development specialist for UNDP.
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