Though the top leaders held discussions on the judiciary for four days and made significant progress, they failed to reach agreement in the end. All this is ample cause for frustration. We, however, hasten to caution against jumping to the conclusion that the taskforce has failed completely and it is of no further use. Some of the agreements that it has reached are significant enough. And even if it has failed to resolve the differences, the deliberations on those differences have not been unimportant. The top leaders from different parties have come together for the first time and have taken part in serious discussions on constitutional matters. Deliberations in the taskforce, some of which have lasted hours, provided an opportunity to the leaders to take a look at divergent perspectives and understand the thinking of others. Even if they fail to sort out differences on all contentious issues before the taskforce within the next deadline, they will have arrived at a better understanding of their differences, and this will contribute to the future negotiations process.
We urge the parties to now begin simultaneous negotiations on the peace process and power-sharing as well. The peace process, power sharing and the drafting of the constitution are intricately linked and it will be difficult to reach an agreement on one issue while leaving the others off the negotiating table. The parties will be able to hammer out a comprehensive deal and reach a breakthrough on all three fronts only through genuine give and take. And such give and take becomes particularly difficult, if not impossible, unless the parties open simultaneous negotiations on all the issues. Once the parties begin such multi-pronged negotiations in earnest, it will also reduce their suspicions of each other and ease the negotiations process. Stretching out negotiations on just one issue, as the parties are doing now, is going to yield no result.
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