US-Taliban links and our role

US officials have recently been downplaying Pakistan’s significance in their country’s interactions with the Afghan Taliban, with a top State Department official dealing with Afghanistan saying Washington does not need any third country to facilitate its engagement with the rulers of Afghanistan. US Special Represe¬ntative for Afghanistan Thomas West has said he has a direct line of communication with the Taliban, as do several of his colleagues, as he emphasised that engagement is also better if it is direct.

Although he was critical of the Taliban, during a recent interview, he also noted that the US is still engaging the group because it does not want the country to become a terrorist safe haven again. He also addressed a major talking point in Pakistan by dismissing the suggestion that the US needs access to Pakistani airspace to reach Afghanistan. West pointed to the drone strike that killed Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to illustrate the availability and use of alternate approach routes. However, he also refused to outright deny Pakistan had a role in al-Zawahiri’s death.

He also underscored that the entire Muslim world — rather than just Pakistan — had “an incredibly important” role to play in engaging with Afghanistan. However, he did not outright write off Pakistan — listing us among several Muslim countries that the US was engaging to help meet its policy goals in Afghanistan. But significantly, West said countries that share borders, languages and traditions with Afghanistan had a special role to play. Although Afghanistan has six neighbours — Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and China — the US has zero influence on the foreign policy positions of Iran and China, while the former Soviet states have limited ties with the Taliban.

Meanwhile, almost half of Afghanistan’s population, almost all of the Taliban’s leadership, and a significant amount of its rank and file, is Pakhtun. The only country in the world with a larger Pakhtun population than Afghanistan is Pakistan, underscoring the close cultural and linguistic ties West referred to.