All is not lost

Pakistan will attend the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan in India

Reports that Pakistan is to attend the Heart of Asia conference on Afghanistan to be held shortly in India are much to be welcomed. The Prime Minister’s Adviser on Foreign Affairs is to journey to Amritsar on 4^th December to take part in discussions with ‘other stakeholders’ as to futures for Afghanistan, a matter of vital importance to Pakistan. The various attendees are agreed that whatever tensions bedevil their complex interrelationships the necessity of achieving a form of consensus regarding Afghanistan overrode their evident tensions. This is in itself a positive move forward. Riding along with the announcement of Pakistan’s attendance at the conference was an acknowledgement that a three-member Taliban delegation was in Pakistan for talks with the administration. It is perhaps unsurprising that no further detail was forthcoming, and the agenda for any meetings was not revealed.



Both developments suggest that despite the frigidity on the surface, relations between India and Pakistan have continued via the back channels and the presence of the Taliban delegation as well as the decision to attend the Heart of Asia conference are unlikely to be simple coincidence. The day-to-day business of governance and diplomacy remains functional despite threats of siege and the shutting down of government by a basket of political parties led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) that is currently hurling around a range of accusations about Indian meddling in affairs of state in Pakistan. None of them thus far are supported by empirical evidence beyond a self-admitted Indian spy and one or more pigeons none of whom are cooing on the record. Some sabre-rattling rhetoric by the Indian PM Narendra Modi has done nothing to nurture the peace process, neither the persistent violations along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary.

For its part Pakistan has displayed constructive restraint in this instance and refrained from echoing the anti-Indian blame game that would have India responsible for all our ills no matter what they are. Once again there is an opportunity for Pakistan to present itself as a moderator, a facilitator, a broker if one with patchy backstory. A player that is rightly at the Heart of Asia and yes, far from isolated.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2016.

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