Indian spanner in reconciliation works

Pakistan has warned against any Indian role in the Afghanistan reconciliation process

Pakistan and the US have agreed to push for the intra-Afghan dialogue to seek a political solution to the lingering war in Afghanistan. This announcement by the two sides — that comes in the wake of a new round of the meetings between US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Pakistani officials in Islamabad as well as a telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Imran Khan and President Ashraf Ghani — is basically is an expression of Pakistan’s readiness to try and convince the Taliban for direct talks with the government in Kabul. But will Pakistan be able to bring the Taliban representatives face to face with the Ghani administration officials? While Pakistan has all along been saying that it does not exercise as much influence on the Taliban as is generally assumed, this long-maintained stance has failed to find any takers in Washington, which has always believed that Pakistan does have a trick or two that can be applied to the Taliban. Hence no halt to the do-more calls.

Pakistan has, simultaneously, warned against any Indian role in the Afghanistan reconciliation process. In a timely announcement, the Foreign Office has reiterated Pakistan’s stance that the solution to the conflict in Afghanistan lies in an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process. For the Taliban, having direct talks with the Ghani administration means involving India in the peace talks. Having committed $3 billion worth of aid to the war-torn country, India thinks itself to be a key stakeholder in the reconciliation process and would want to see its proxies in contention for major roles in any future set-up — something that the Taliban may not be willing to accept, at least straightaway. Hence, India is clearly a spanner in the reconciliation works, and Pakistan cautioning against any Indian role in the peace process makes a lot of sense.

Seen in this context, the idea of direct talks between the Taliban and the Ghani administration is unlikely to help the peace process in Afghanistan which has been at war for almost four decades now. If the US is really serious about bringing peace to the war-torn country, it must take Pakistan’s advice on any Indian role in the Afghan peace talks seriously.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2019.

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