The devil in the details

There is a strong argument in favour of peace talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan as there appears to be no other way forward, but getting beyond a position that is purely conceptual to one that is substantive is a tortuous road indeed. The latest construct to be deployed in the search for peace is the Quadrilateral Coordination Group made up of representatives from Pakistan, Afghanistan, the US and China. They met on February 6 and are to meet again on February 23 to work on what is optimistically called a ‘road map.’

It would be fair to say that there is considerable scepticism about the chances of success for this quartet, in large part because some sections of the Taliban hold the military initiative in Afghanistan and the fighting season is now well under way. Urging the Taliban in their various iterations to join the talks while they have the Afghan government on the back foot is likely to be a waste of breath, the more so as other preconditions relating to the release of prisoners and the opening of the Taliban political office in Qatar, plus the removal of travel restrictions — are unlikely to be met. Road maps do not come much sketchier than this.

Alongside these developments, Afghanistan and Pakistan are doing some essential repair work on the relationship between their respective lead security agencies, the ISI and the Afghan National Directorate of Security. What looked like a rapprochement with the signing of an MoU in May 2015 to the effect that the two would work in a more closely coordinated fashion, quickly turned sour. It became a memorandum of misunderstanding and then dropped off the agenda altogether. Attempts have been made to revive it in the past week, with some quiet diplomacy being deployed and we warmly welcome this positive move. How the various threads mesh together productively given the overarching trust deficit is difficult to see. But mesh they must. Devils and details as yet remain un-reconciled.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 9^th,  2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.