The High Peace Council (HPC) warned Thursday that anxiety over Afghanistan's post-2014 situation will increase in the absence of a dominant government in Afghanistan.
Speaking at a gathering of religious scholars and intellectuals in Kabul, deputy HPC head Ataullah Lodin urged that "serious attention" should be paid to strengthening the government before the withdrawal of international combat forces from Afghanistan in 2014.
"If the government doesn't create a strong system before the withdrawal of foreigners from the country, 2014 will be very distressing for the people," said Lodin.
Other HPC members had similar sentiments.
"As long as the government doesn't determine the real motives of the Taliban and the objectives behind the presence of the United States in the country, no actual peace will materialize," HPC member Abdulsalam Abed said.
The HPC is charged with reaching out to insurgents, negotiating peace and reintegrating insurgent fighters. With hundreds of millions of dollars of Western backing, the Council has so far failed to achieve a major breakthrough, only reintegrating some low-level Taliban fighters.
HPC head Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated at his residence last year by a suicide bomber disguised as a Tailban peace envoy. A similar attack this month has seriously wounded the director of the powerful National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's main spy agency.