Daily Times Editorial Aug 28, 2013

Karzai’s hopes President Hamid Karzai’s first visit after the PML-N government took office predictably yielded a mixed bag. On the one hand, Pakistan and Afghanistan signed a number of trade and economic cooperation agreements. Apart from being the priority for Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as he emphasized his government’s desire to promote friendly and cooperative relations with all of Pakistan’s neighbours during the joint press conference with President Karzai, this extension of ‘soft’ power towards our western neighbour may have the collateral benefit of helping match India’s similar effort towards Afghanistan since 2001. Since India-phobia dominates the military establishment’s approach to the Afghan quagmire, this should bring satisfaction to GHQ too. However, economic agreements signed and the promise of cultural exchange aside, our guest did not shrink during the joint press conference to shift focus back on the real issue: security and peace in Afghanistan (and by extension Pakistan). On the eve of and during the visit, comment in the media concentrated on Karzai’s hopes of persuading Pakistan to release more Afghan Taliban prisoners, including crucially Mulla Baradar, the erstwhile second-in-command of Mulla Omar and around whom controversy swirled regarding a ‘unilateral’ initiative to open peace talks. As it turned out, and despite the extension of the Afghan President’s stay by one day to hold further talks with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the cool air of Murree over lunch, there is no news about any further releases of prisoners. President Karzai emphasized Afghanistan’s desire for Pakistan to help out in finding a way for the Afghan High Peace Council to hold talks with the Taliban. While Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif promised every possible facilitation for this and the international community’s efforts for peace, there are no details so far of how and when Islamabad may proceed on this score. The Doha Taliban office fiasco is still in limbo amidst efforts to find another acceptable country location for that office. The question, however, that remains unanswered in the midst of the public bonhomie on display between the two sides that rested on proclamations of common interest in combating terrorism and restoring peace to the region, was the elephant in the room: the Pakistan military. As is well known, the military establishment’s role in ‘managing’ Afghanistan has been central in the past, and arguably critical now and in the future. On the face of it, the civilian and military sides of the Pakistani coin appear to be in harmony on their approach to the Afghan imbroglio, but the track record of the military establishment’s support to the Afghan Taliban while ostensibly being allied with the US suggests there may still be some way to go before Pakistan speaks with one voice and acts with consistency. The US/NATO looming withdrawal in 2014 poses teasing questions to all the stakeholders in the Afghan problem. Without talks and a political solution before the foreign occupation forces leave, the risk of a descent into a fresh civil war post-2014 grows. Pakistan, the region and the world cannot remain sanguine at the prospect of that civil war spilling over the porous border and exacerbating Pakistan’s own problems with jihadi terrorism. The mutuality of interests of Pakistan and Afghanistan in a turn towards peace within and without is without question the best outcome for all. Whether it can be achieved however, is a prickly and difficult question to answer. Wisdom demands that each country, in its own interests as well as in the interests of regional and world peace work together to overcome terrorism, open the door to peaceful political solutions in Afghanistan, and reap the peace dividend in terms of progress and development rather than repeat endlessly the war and ruin that has visited Afghanistan for over four decades and had its collateral fallout in Pakistan in the shape finally of an indigenous terrorist movement.