Daily Times editorial Feb 6, 2013

Afghan peace timeline The trilateral summit hosted by British Prime Minister David Cameron and boasting the presence of Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai has come out with a joint statement at the end of their deliberations that appears to represent the triumph of hope over reality. The three countries have pledged to work for peace in Afghanistan within six months, a timeline that appears to most observers to be overly optimistic, given the ground realities in war-torn Afghanistan. The best that can be said for the outcome is that it represents a convergence of three of the most important players in Afghanistan on the urgency of making efforts towards the desirable end of peace through a political settlement in the light of the looming withdrawal of western forces by 2014. The trilateral summit has put its weight behind the opening of a Doha office by the Taliban to give a boost to efforts for talks. It may be recalled that the US and the Taliban had bilaterally agreed on the Doha office, but the initiative floundered on the rock of Washington’s reluctance to fulfil its commitment to release five Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to be housed in Doha. Both Pakistan and Afghanistan had reservations about the US’s unilateral attempts to negotiate with the Taliban, both feeling they would thereby be bypassed in the endgame. The Taliban have consistently refused to talk to the Kabul government, conditionally being prepared to contemplate direct talks with the US. Recent prisoner releases by Pakistan have raised hopes of an Afghan-led and owned process of negotiations between these prisoners and the High peace Council of Afghanistan. The most prominent prisoner in Pakistani custody, Mullah Biradar, has yet to be released, reportedly because of the US’s reservations. The summit urged the Taliban to join the peace process, but so far there has been no response from them. The other positive from the summit is that Kabul and Islamabad are both reiterating their commitment to mutual cooperation and coordination for management of the transition in Afghanistan that it is hoped will prevent the eruption of a civil war once the US/ISAF forces depart. These fears are not unrealistic, founded on apprehensions the Taliban may go for a final push to capture power once the western forces are gone, in the anticipation that the Afghan army and police will not be able to hold them off. However, given Pakistan’s support to the Taliban since their overthrow in 2001, the fact that this third summit has seen the presence of the Pakistani and Afghan army and intelligence chiefs speaks of a sea change in the attitude of the Pakistani military establishment that sees its main problem now as the homegrown Taliban threat, which they may be calculating can best be met by ensuring peace returns to Afghanistan under a power sharing arrangement between the incumbent Kabul government and the Taliban. President Zardari clearly underlined the impossibility of dividing peace in Afghanistan from peace at home, pointing to the dictates of geography and history between the two neighbours. All the positive noises emanating from London notwithstanding, it would take an incorrigible optimist to think that bringing peace to Afghanistan would be an easy enterprise, not to mention the highly ambitious timeline of six months. Nevertheless, all sides, including the Taliban, whose leader Mulla Omar has recently stated he would be agreeable to a power sharing arrangement in Kabul, are slowly inching towards the urgent need to put in place political arrangements through negotiations to prevent the slide into another civil war that may last decades, suck in neighbouring powers again in support of their respective proxies, and cause spillover instability in the region as a whole, particularly Pakistan. It should not be forgotten either that the peace dividend in Afghanistan would benefit the region entire, with Pakistan perhaps best placed geographically and geostrategically to take advantage of its unique position as the energy and trade corridor between the hinterland of Asia and the rest of the world. Of course there still appears many a slip between the cup and the lip, which indicates how far and high above their past policies all players and stakeholders will have to soar before the dream of peace and prosperity can be realised.