Summit on Afghanistan: Pakistan asks for greater Pakhtun representation

Islamabad asks organisers of Bonn Conference to avoid the mistakes of 2001.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan has called for adequate representation of Pakhtuns in the upcoming conference on Afghanistan to be held in Bonn, Germany in December 2011.

Islamabad made the request to the organisers of the Bonn Conference in light of the fact that, at the previous conference on Afghanistan, also held in Bonn in 2001, only the non-Pakhtun Northern Alliance had been invited, alienating the Pakhtuns, the single largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, who constitute 42 per cent of the country’s population.

Pakistan itself will not be sending its foreign minister to a preparatory conference to be held in Ankara in September and will instead send a low-level delegation, according to sources familiar with the matter. The decision was conveyed to Turkey during the visit by President Asif Ali Zardari to Istanbul earlier in April.

The conference in the Turkish capital is taking place as US and other foreign troops begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan, a process which is due to begin in July of this year.

Pakistani officials had earlier objected to participation by India at the Ankara conference but were later persuaded to withdraw those objections by Turkish diplomats.

“We do not want Pakistan’s interests to be harmed due to its opposition to India’s participation,” a senior Turkish foreign ministry official is quoted as having told Pakistani diplomats.

Turkish officials reminded Islamabad that they had acceded once to Pakistan’s request and not invited India to the regional summit held in Istanbul in 2010. New Delhi had protested being left out of that conference.

Pakistan has been wary of India’s role in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban and fears encirclement by an alliance of New Delhi and Kabul. Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan are viewed with great suspicion in Islamabad.

The meeting in Ankara will serve as a preparatory gathering to a second conference to be held in Bonn, scheduled for December 2011. The Ankara meeting will finalise the agenda of the Bonn summit.

While attending the Nato summit in Lisbon, Portugal in November 2011, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel to host a second conference in Bonn at the ten-year anniversary of the first conference.

The second Bonn Conference is expected to focus on three key areas: the transfer of responsibility for security to the Afghan government by 2014, an outlining of further international commitments to Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign troops, and an Afghan political process that is expected to include reconciliation with at least some elements of the Taliban.

The conference is expected to be attended by over 1,000 delegates from more than 90 countries. The preparatory meeting in Ankara is being attended by 60 countries, including most of the foreign ministers of the participating nations.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2011.