Afghan Lawmakers Visit the Emerald

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DUBLIN (AFP) — A cross-party group of Afghan lawmakers will visit both parts of Ireland this week to study the island's peace process, the foreign ministry said on Monday.
During their "lesson-sharing visit" the Afghan parliamentarians will attend sessions in Dublin and Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, dealing with issues like power-sharing, policing and community relations.
"Ireland has many lessons to share from its long history of conflict and the Northern Ireland peace process," said Foreign Minister Micheal Martin.
"We are conscious that each country must find its own path to peace, and that there is no correct 'one-size-fits-all' path to take.
"However, it has also been our experience that international support can be invaluable in securing peace, and we hope to play our part through sharing our experiences of conflict and peace-making with others."
Martin described the scheduled Afghan presidential elections on August 20 as a "critical opportunity" for the country and said everything should be done to support them and ensure they are credible.
The visit is part of the Afghanistan Parliamentary Assistance Project (APAP), a capacity-building project of the Center for International Development at State University, New York.
The US centre has worked on strengthening parliamentary programmes in Kenya, Morocco, Uganda, Haiti, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Serbia, Jordan and the West Bank.
The Irish programme for the Afghans has been organised by the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, an Irish NGO dedicated to building peace and fostering reconciliation by facilitating dialogues and creating peace education resources.
Ireland's foreign ministry set up a special conflict resolution unit two years ago to share lessons from the Northern Ireland peace process with other countries experiencing and emerging from conflict.
Three decades of shooting and bombings in British-ruled Northern Ireland were ended with the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement which paved the way to a power-sharing administration.
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