President Hamid Karzai was in Qatar to patch up relations with the Gulf state after failing to win Pakistani support to push forward the peace dialogue with the Taleban.
President Hamid Karzai was in Qatar to patch up relations with the Gulf state after failing to win Pakistani support to push forward the peace dialogue with the Taleban.Political observers believe the two-day weekend trip to Doha was on the urging of new US Secretary of State John Kerry. It also sent a clear message to Islamabad that Kabul had an alternative route to the Taleban if Pakistan was unwilling to help.
But can Afghanistan keep Pakistan out of talks to secure lasting peace in the country? The Taleban came out of madrasas along the Afghan border in Pakistan, and the ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) has been a strong influence.
Earlier the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) had announced Afghanistan could not wait for Pakistan’s involvement to make peace with the Taleban.
“We should work neither hurriedly nor calmly with Pakistan, which is a nuclear power and has interfered in Afghanistan’s affairs,” says Sayed Massoud, political and economic analyst. As an example of Pakistan’s clout in Afghanistan, he pointed to trade deals where the Pakistani currency is superior to the Afghani. “We are economically dependent on Pakistan,” he says.
Pakistan has been erratic in its relationship with its neighbour. The most recent instance was the reported statement by an “unnamed” Pakistani diplomat who said the Afghan president was the stumbling block in the way of a solution in Afghanistan. The news from Reuters news agency was widely reported in the Afghan media.
Pivotal player
Ahead of Karzai’s trip to Qatar his spokesperson, Emal Faizi, said Pakistan was to blame for the failure to make a breakthrough in peace talks with the Taleban. He said the leaders of the Taleban were sheltering in Pakistan, and if Islamabad wanted to it could play a “key role” in negotiating lasting peace between the Taleban and the Afghan government.
Moreover, according to Faizi, Islamabad had wanted Kabul to cut its relations with New Delhi, and send Afghan soldiers to Pakistan for military training, among other things. The president’s spokesman said the government has rejected the demands as “unacceptable”, and canceled the planned travel of 11 army officers for training to Pakistan.
According to Faizi, there were hopes of cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul until the third trilateral summit of Pakistan-Britain-Afghanistan in London on Feb 2 this year. But thereafter relations between the neighbours have been bleak, and a matter of concern for their western allies. British Prime Minister David Cameron held phone conversations with both the Afghan and Pakistan presidents on Mar 27, urging them to bury their differences and back the peace process.
Karzai’s spokesman said the Afghan president has decided not to wait, and is exploring “alternate” ways to reach the Taleban through Doha.
Meanwhile, tension has been growing on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The Afghan border police have been reporting military activities along the Durand Line and next to Lal’Pur district of Nangarhar province.
The MoFA said the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jawed Ludin summoned Pakistani ambassador Mohammed Sadeq and shared the government’s concerns about military construction and movement along their common border.
Banking on turmoil
Pakistan-watchers are against the government’s begging Pakistan to cooperate in peace efforts. Pakistan is exploiting Afghanistan’s vulnerability, they say.
Jawed Kohistani, a military expert, believes some Taleban leaders are strongly interested in joining the peace process but they see Pakistan as a main obstacle. He says Islamabad has a stake in turmoil in the region. That strengthens extremism, which is Pakistan’s “main tool” to gets its way in the region, he adds.
Kohistani describes Pakistan as a “nest of terrorism”, which will take it towards isolation in the world.
According to Sayed Hussein Anwari, member of parliament (MP) from Kabul, there would be peace in Afghanistan if Pakistan, which is at the root of all problems, was kept out of the peace process.
He billed Karzai’s two-day trip to Doha as an “elementary step” to bring the Taleban to the negotiating table. It was Qatar that had invited the Taleban to set up a representative office, an act that had annoyed Karzai who recalled his ambassador from the country. Karzai has time and again said only the Afghan government can lead the peace process with the Taleban.
Anwari who believed it was high-time for the Afghan president to mend relations with Qatar, tempered his optimism with a word of caution. “It is not known who are representing the Taleban (in Qatar). There is a possibility that powerful faces would be there.”
The president’s office confirmed Karzai had not planned to meet the Taleban representatives. However, MP Gul Padsha had hoped for a breakthrough with the Taleban.
“When Karzai did not have any meetings with the Taleban and no discussions regarding the peace talks, the trip is meaningless. The minister of foreign affairs or the Afghan ambassador could have done what he did,” he said dismissively.
He said the Afghan government has failed the peace process by not having a clear policy and strategy. “It would be better if it was known who would talk with Karzai in Qatar,” he said. “But the Afghan government is always careless … no proper policy has been followed.”
