Pakistan’s Afghan policy changing?
Senior US
official Lisa Curtis has arrived in Pakistan and held meetings with our
officials amidst reports that the process of engagement with the Afghan Taliban
for the purposes of advancing the peace process has stalled. While no details
of Ms Curtis’ discussions are available, US Special Envoy for Afghan Peace and
Reconciliation Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad’s arrival had been delayed. The
peace process has lately been facilitated by Pakistan in arranging a meeting
between Khalilzad and the Afghan Taliban in Abu Dhabi. The follow up meeting
that was tentatively announced would be held in Saudi Arabia has not so far been
settled. In fact no date or venue for the next meeting has been set so far. The
major roadblock that has emerged is the repeated refusal of the Afghan Taliban
to meet representatives of the Afghan government. The US wants Pakistan to pressurise
the Afghan Taliban leadership based on its soil to accept direct negotiations
with the Afghan government, a dialogue without which no solution to the
unending war seems possible. Pakistan says it has little control over the
Afghan Taliban. Fears being expressed by insightful observers that US President
Donald Trump’s impatience with the long drawn out conflict is tending towards a
precipitate departure of US troops from Afghanistan. From Pakistan’s point of
view, this could lead to an exacerbated civil war and a fresh wave of refugees
fleeing the fighting into its territory and those of neighbouring countries. The
wisdom seems to have sunk in amongst Pakistani policy circles that the shelf
life of the policy of support to the Afghan Taliban or at the very least
turning a blind eye to their presence on our soil and activities across the
Afghan border may have come to an end. An outright Afghan Taliban military
victory after the US troops depart is a distinct possibility, but may not end
the fighting. Therefore the best arrangement would be for some form of power
sharing between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Pakistan is also
attempting to put its best foot forward in relations with Afghanistan,
including an agreement for prisoner exchange with Kabul. In the absence of an
extradition or prisoner exchange treaty with Afghanistan, this agreement
provides for the first time the possibility on a reciprocal basis of the release
of prisoners charged with relatively petty crimes, granted bail but yet to be
released, and those who have served out their sentence but are yet to regain
their freedom. The new Afghan Ambassador, Shukrullah Atif Mashal has told
Pakistani media that he had also raised with the Pakistani authorities the issues
of treatment of Afghan citizens at Torkham, apart from the problems of extortionate
‘fees’ for visas at the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul and Consulate in Jalalabad
and the extraction of bribes from Afghan truckers.
While the war
rumbles on in Afghanistan, with a grim reminder in the shape of the attack on
the Green Village foreign compound in Kabul that killed four and wounded over a
hundred people, Pakistan seems to be looking at its options in Afghanistan in a
new light. The arrest in Peshawar of Hafez Mohibullah, former religious affairs
minister in the Taliban government, may or may not be to exert some pressure on
the Afghan Taliban to reconsider their rigid stance on not talking to the
Afghan government. Informed observers say such arrests usually point to desired
changes in Taliban policy, especially if they are followed up by more arrests.
On the other hand, if that does not happen and the arrested people are released
after some time, it may be due to other considerations of a transitory nature.
Pakistan must safeguard its interests against an unravelling of the already
precarious security on its western border because of the Afghan conflict
escalating for not yielding to the current peace and reconciliation process, thereby
destabilising the situation because of fresh refugee influx and other undesirable
‘imports’.
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