Persuading the
Taliban
Prime Minister (PM)
Imran Khan in an interaction with media on March 25, 2019, related an
intriguing piece of information. He said that he had cancelled a scheduled
meeting with the Taliban in Islamabad due to concerns expressed by the
Afghanistan government. However, he did not clarify when and with which Taliban
representatives this aborted meeting had been fixed. It may be recalled that
media reports in February 2019 spoke of a planned meeting with the Taliban in
Pakistan after the last round of talks between the US and the Taliban in Doha,
Qatar. In fact there was speculation at the time that the US Special
Representative leading the Doha talks, Zalmay Khalilzad, may also meet the
Taliban since he was present at the time in Islamabad. There was a statement
put out by the Taliban on February 17, 2019, a day before a delegation of the
group was supposed to arrive in Islamabad to meet PM Imran Khan and possibly
Zalmay Khalilzad and his delegation officials. The statement said that the
Taliban delegation was unable to travel because of sanctions by the US and the
UN. Whether, however, that was the real reason or an excuse to avoid talks in
Islamabad that the Taliban may have felt would subject them to a lot of
pressure to come to the negotiating table with the Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani’s government, which they have steadfastly refused to do, calling the
Afghan government a US puppet, is not known. So while they have engaged with
the US in Doha in a number of rounds of talks that laid down the bare outline
of a possible solution to the long running Afghan war, comprising the
withdrawal of foreign (largely US) troops on the one hand and guarantees that
Afghan soil would never again be allowed to be used to attack the US or its
allies ever again (a la 9/11) on the other, the Taliban have not budged an inch
on the demand that they hold talks with the Ashraf Ghani government.
PM Imran Khan
struck a hopeful note when he suggested an interim setup in Kabul to hold
inclusive general elections in the war torn country in which all stakeholders, including
the Taliban, should participate. Let such an election decide who is to rule in
Afghanistan after the departure of the US and other foreign troops, was Prime
Minister Imran Khan’s message. However, he immediately applied a dampener on
the very hopes he sought to arouse by stating he did not know how long such a
process would take to implement. If the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf government’s
and the establishment’s statements vis-à-vis Afghanistan for some time are kept
in view, it would seem that Pakistan is wedded to persuading the Taliban to
enter into talks with the President Ashraf Ghani administration. PM Imran Khan
too quoted the US officials, including President Donald Trump, as having come
round to the view that only Pakistan can persuade the Taliban to accede to
broader talks that would include the Ashraf Ghani administration and that the
Americans were now pleased that Pakistan was making efforts in this direction. Critics
in Pakistan of the government and the establishment point to the similarities
in the narrative of Pakistan regarding persuading the Taliban and the failure
to act against non-state actors that recently brought Pakistan and India to the
brink of war. Whether such a comparison holds water or not, there seems to be a
convergence across the board in Pakistan that the days of proxy wars have come
to an end and groups that threaten the peace of the region because of such activities
must be reined in. Of course the Taliban are a different and rather more
difficult kettle of fish. Nevertheless, Pakistan must realize that its
interests now lie in nudging the Taliban to the negotiating table with the
Ghani government if Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region are to return to
peace, normality and progress.
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