Setting up shop

At a time when the international community is having a rethink about setting up an office for the Taliban in Doha, the suggestion by PTI chief Imran Khan that the government set up an office for the Taliban in Pakistan appears to be out of step. The opening of the Qatar office was exploited to the full by the Taliban. It is being suggested that the government should declare a ceasefire vis-à-vis the Taliban in line with the decision of the All Parties Conference (APC) held recently. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has already said that the bombing of a church in Peshawar on September 22 put an end to the nascent peace process, which appears to place him at odds with Imran Khan.



This is, of course, a logical outcome of the fact that the militants have killed three soldiers, among them a major general, along with the scores brutally killed in Peshawar, just days after the decision to hold talks was finalised. That some can still say we can talk to them, displays a lack of understanding of the nature of the Taliban and their fight. Clearly, they feel they are at a position of strength vis-a-vis the Pakistani state ,which does not augur well for any talks whatsoever.

Meanwhile, setting up an office for the Taliban in Pakistan is no less fraught with pitfalls than setting up an office in Doha. There would need to be several offices as the Taliban are far from being a united or homogenous group. All the ingredients are there for a recipe that spells ‘trouble’ from the outset. Whilst it is not difficult to support the broad sentiment of Imran Khan’s position in that nine years of fighting have not produced a result; it is difficult to see how the setting up of offices for the Taliban as well as offering a ceasefire is going to be seen as anything other than giving them carte blanche. There has been no word in the public domain as to what the Taliban think of this proposal or who speaks for them holistically — if anybody — and an essential prerogative for talks is, of course, that you have to know who you are talking to, who they represent and what their mandate is.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th,  2013.

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