Bajwa’s hope
COAS General Qamar Javed Bajwa led a high powered
military-civil delegation to Kabul on the first day of the temporary ceasefire
announced by the Afghan government and Taliban. According to an ISPR statement
after the day-long visit was over, General Bajwa had meetings with Afghan
President Ashraf Ghani, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, and US commander
General John Nicholson. Although not much detail was provided in the ISPR
statement, it said the discussions dealt with the whole array of military,
security and other issues of concern to the two countries. General Bajwa
expressed the hope that the ceasefire would pave the way for an end to the
protracted conflict. It is widely believed that Pakistan facilitated the
ceasefire as part of further confidence building measures on the cards. The
recently agreed Afghanistan-Pakistan Action Plan for Peace and Stability
(APAPPS) still awaits the creation of five working groups, the most important
being military and intelligence, to steer the relationship out of the vicious
cycle of outrage, distrust and recrimination. General Bajwa during his talks
attempted to dispel Afghan concerns about the fencing of the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border by explaining it was meant to prevent terrorist
attacks from across the border and not to erect walls between the people of the
two countries.
The sweet talk in Kabul by both sides notwithstanding,
General Bajwa’s sentiments appear more the triumph of hope over reality than
the glad tidings they imply. There are still many obstacles to the temporary
ceasefire (with all its exceptions and caveats) triggering peace and
reconciliation in the war-torn country. If proof of this were needed, it was
provided on the very first day of the ceasefire while General Bajwa was
visiting. Clashes were reported across Afghanistan, with the governor of the
northern Kohistan district in Faryab province killed in an ambush along with
eight others. His district was reportedly then run over by the Taliban. Intense
fighting was reported from Faryab and Sari Pul provinces, with unspecified casualties.
Similar reports were received from Ghazni. Whether these attacks across the
country are owed to the ceasefire-excluded groups such as the Haqqani Network
and Islamic State or factions within the Taliban ranks who no longer adhere to
the Quetta Shura’s directions at all times and places is not clear. But the
fighting once again highlights the fragility and precariousness of even
announced temporary ceasefires in the troubled country. The Taliban leader,
Haibatullah Akhundzada, reiterated his demand for direct talks with the US,
which the latter consistently refuses to countenance, advising its adversary to
instead talk to the Kabul government. This is unacceptable to the Taliban, who
have dubbed the Ashraf Ghani government a ‘puppet’. Haibatullah Akhundzada also
warned leading clerics who had issued a fatwa the other day condemning suicide
bombings as against the teachings of Islam that they were being used by the
occupying forces and Kabul. This warning could have a chilling effect on the
clerics supporting peace and reconciliation since their meeting at which the
fatwa was issued was bombed.
Pakistan of late has been bending its back to appear
reasonable, rational, and a peacemaker vis-à-vis Afghanistan. But all these efforts
continue to run aground again and again on the rock of the accusation that it
still harbours the Taliban and other insurgent Afghan groups and allows them to
operate from Pakistani soil. Pakistan denies this, but the world tends to take
this denial with a huge pinch of salt. It has become the bugbear of relations
with the US too after President Donald Trump came to office. Difficult as the
task is, Pakistan must adhere to a policy that is in its best interests, i.e.
using whatever leverage it possesses to bring the combatants in Afghanistan to
the negotiating table. Recently, the US authorities have been making
sympathetic noises regarding Pakistan’s core concerns, which translate into the
immediate problem of terrorist attacks from across the border by the displaced Tehreek-e-Taliban
Pakistan (TTP), and the longer term concern about having a friendly regime in
Kabul to ensure the security of its western border. The ceasefire may only have
been an attempted temporary balm, and not consistently successful, but hopefully
it would act as the first drops of rain onto the scorched earth of Afghanistan,
with the possibility of peace providing huge dividends to the war weary
populace, stability for Pakistan and the region, and the closure of a bloody
chapter in history.
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