Introduction
Afghan President Hamid
Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were in London on 03 February
2013 for a trilateral summit meeting with the British Prime Minister David
Cameron. The current talks in London were the third in the series with the
first two having been held in 2012. The inaugural meeting was in Kabul in July,
which was then followed by a meeting at the sidelines of the UN General
Assembly in September. In the London talks, the Pakistani and Afghan army and
intelligence chiefs took part for the first time. It was reported that the
Afghan and Pakistani military and intelligence officials also met informally on
03 February ahead of the summit.
The Afghan peace process,
primed by the release of Taliban detainees by Pakistan, had not been
progressing as hoped by all stakeholders. On the other hand, Pakistan in return
for the Taliban detainees it had released, expected further cooperation from
Afghanistan including a role in training of Afghan National Security Forces
(ANSF). Some analyst also felt UK was best placed to resolve the issue of the
Durand Line which has never been officially recognized by Kabul, and has been a
major cause of tension between the two countries.
Issues
Leading up to the London
trilateral, there were two events of significance after the Paris peace talks
in December 2012. First was the visit by Karzai to Washington where he and
President Obama announced on 11January that a negotiating office for the
Taliban would be opened in Qatar. However Karzai, on return to Kabul, said
there will be no deal until Qatar meets his earlier stated conditions in
writing. Second was the core group meeting in Dubai where the Pakistan‘s
foreign secretary had said that Pakistan plans to release all Afghan Taliban
prisoners still in its custody.
The Afghan President in his
imitable manner set the tone for the trilateral meet with an interview to the
Guardian and ITV released late on 03 February. He suggested that Pakistan was
preventing the Taliban from entering into peace talks with his government.
Karzai also said that the biggest threat to peace in Afghanistan was not the
Taliban, but meddling from foreign powers. He took a swipe at the British when
he remarked that Helmand situation and security was better before British
troops were deployed there in 2006.Hinting at the Taliban safe havens in
Pakistan he added that the drawdown of Western troops appeared to have been
because they had realised that “they were fighting in the wrong place.”
Taliban for Talks
The US has tried to
accelerate the peace process by working with Britain, Norway and Germany to
reach out to the Taliban. All these
efforts were to work around the Taliban demands for changing the Afghan
constitution, withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the most
uncomfortable of their entire refusal to recognize the Afghan government while
being more amenable to negotiating directly with US.
Taliban Office
The heart of the disagreement
regarding opening of Taliban office in Doha is Karzai's demand that Qatar
produce a written memorandum of understanding agreeing to his preconditions.
These demands include assurances that the office would not be used for any
“political purpose” other than direct negotiations with Afghanistan, that it
have a fixed time frame and be closed if talks do not take place, and that all
Taliban negotiators provide “documentation” proving they are legitimate
representatives.Qatar has not agreed on the demands of Karzai Administration
that the office should be closed down within six months if Taliban do not start
direct talks with HPC.
Release of Detainees
Pakistan’s lack of
monitoring the whereabouts and activities of Taliban prisoners it released in
recent months as frustrated Afghanistan. Pakistan says doesn't have the
resources to keep track of the freed detainees. The HPC had handed Pakistan the
list of prisoners, including Turabi, that it wanted freed. They have also asked
for the release of the Taliban’s former second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani
Baradar, but Washington has urged Pakistan not to release him. There are
indications that at least more than half might have rejoined the ranks of the
insurgency. In some cases, the released Taliban resorted to suicide attacks.
Further Pakistan had released more detainees than Afghanistan had asked for.
There has been at least one report of tension between Taliban leadership as a
released Taliban leader asked to be reinstated to his former post. The US Embassy
in Kabul has called for “responsible release” of Taliban prisoners and that it
was up to Afghanistan and Pakistan to reach to a solution.
US Interests
Top on the US agenda is
jump-starting the peace and reconciliation process which is not in-step with its
drawdown plans and its exit strategy. Without a meaningful outcome of the
political planned in Afghanistan, the US fears will again be accused of
abandoning the region, just as it was at the end of the Soviet Union's Afghan
occupation in the early 1990s. Worse, if a civil war breaks out, it may do an
‘Iraq’ in South Asia. In addition, U.S. hopes of positioning a post-withdrawal
counterterrorism force in Afghanistan while in the near term negotiations are
critical to secure the release of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only U.S. service
member known to be a Taliban captive.
Pakistani Demands
Pakistanis want a secure
Afghan border, an end to the Balochistan insurgency, coordinated action against
anti-Pakistan guerrillas in both countries and reduction of Indian role in
Afghanistan. According BBC News, Pakistan does not want a repeat of the 1989
pullout by Soviet forces, which left Kabul in the hands of what it regarded as
"unfriendly" forces. It fears this may extend Indian influence to its
western border.
Trilateral Summit
Following talks the joint
statement issued from Downing Street said, "All sides agreed on the
urgency of this work and committed themselves to take all necessary measures to
achieve the goal of a peace settlement over the next six months." They
urged the Taliban to join the reconciliation process in Afghanistan. Cameron
said both Karzai and Zardari had agreed at the summit to initiate 'an
unprecedented level of co-operation' between their nations and they hoped to
sign an agreement strengthening ties on economic and security issues, including
trade and border management, later in the year. He added that discussions at
the summit had focused on ways of advancing the Afghan-led peace process as
well as strengthening relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Outcome
All sides affirmed support
for the opening of a Taliban office in Doha for the purpose of negotiations
with the HPC. They called on the Taliban to take steps necessary to open an
office and to enter into dialogue. However there were reports that Pakistan
viewed the Afghan conditions as detrimental to further progress on the peace
talks. Another significant commitment was to “strengthen co-ordination of
Taliban detainee releases from Pakistani custody.” In future Islamabad will
send the list of the Taliban inmates to the HPC that would be released from
Pakistani prisons. It had been speculated that the Afghan Government will
indirectly recognize the Durand Line in a pact “titled Border Management and
Strategic Agreement”, and in turn Pakistan shall push the Taliban for peace. As
per Afghan media when the US pressurized Pakistan for supporting insurgents,
General Kayani justified Pakistani action in a 100-page report claiming that
NATO, India and Afghanistan wanted to divide Pakistan. The Afghan presidential
spokesman, on 10 Feb clarified that the issue of the Durand Line had not been
discussed at the trilateral.
Transitional Government
It has also been reported
that the Pakistan’s delegation during the London talks demanded that
negotiations be carried out between Afghan political groups and Taliban to
establish a new legitimate administration in Kabul. It is said that Pakistani
delegation had told President Karzai that they were not able to get the Taliban
to accept the Afghan Constitution and the Afghan Government, therefore, there
is a need to establish a ‘new political system’.12 According to sources,
Pakistan held a meeting between warlords, Hezb-e-Islami and the Taliban
commanders in the Shamshatoo Refugee Camp in Pakistan where the establishment
of a transitional Government in Afghanistan was discussed.
An Afghan Taliban spokesman
on Wednesday dismissed the outcome of a conference in London and said that the
conference and other “horse trading” were “the real obstacles of effective and
fruitful negotiations between the factual sides”.14 The US on its part said that
it supports the Pak-Afghan deadline for finalising a peace deal with the
Taliban and urges insurgents to open a reconciliation post in Qatar. Such a
process was “the surest way to end the violence and ensure lasting stability in
Afghanistan and in the region”. “Our goal here has been to support the creation
of a process to make it possible … for willing Taliban participants to talk
directly to the Afghan High Peace Council”.
The trilateral was followed
by two visits. First was a two-day visit by the British Defense Secretary
Philip Hammond to southern Afghanistan to visit U.K. troops on 05 Feb 13. He
also met with new Afghan Defense Minister Bismillah Mohammadi in Kabul. 16 The
second visit was by Pakistani Prime Minister Ashraf to meet David Cameron on
February 12, 2013. During the meeting, the two leaders discussed matters of
bilateral interest including the aftermath in Afghanistan following the
withdrawal of NATO troops. Prime Minister Ashraf also put in a bid for military
hardware for Pakistan. The meeting also covered Indo-Pakistan relations apart
from discussions on matters of bilateral and international importance. Cameron,
hailing the recently concluded trilateral meeting, said that Pakistan’s role
was constructive and he would be visiting Pakistan this summer to carry the
process forward.
Assessment
The trilateral summit meets
are organised taking in consideration certain ground realities. For one it is
not possible to discuss Afghanistan with India and Pakistan in the same forum.
Therefore, US conducts a trilateral involving India while the UK manages one
with Pakistan. Second, UK has been more active in dealing with the Taliban
representatives and involving them in the power sharing mechanism in Kabul(
since the Saudi organised peace talks in 2009) and the same time it mitigates
the turbulent relationship Pakistan shares with US particularly for the
political constituency in Pakistan. The present meet involved the military and
intelligence chiefs giving due recognition to the various power centres in
Pakistan, and possibly signaling a more direct and on the table approach to
speed up the process.
Although the Taliban appear
more ready to talk than ever before, peace talks remain tenuous on account of a
rising number of interlocutors on either side — all trying to get some kind of
negotiations started with various combinations of stakeholders. Reportedly,
members of the Taliban are in contact with representatives from 30 to 40
different countries. Recent informal talks in Doha had the intervention of a
Pakistani politician Mullah Fazlur Rahman and Yusuf al-Qaradawi who has
contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The timeline of six months set
by the trilateral summit, deemed overly optimistic by most experts, is most
probably derived from the imperative to get the Taliban to participate in the
upcoming provincial and Presidential elections in Afghanistan and the filing of
nominations for the same. There is also this need to settle the border issue
and Pakistani requirements at the earliest to get on with the peace process in
right earnest.
Second, the idea of the
transitional government being introduced into the peace process aims at finding
a way around the Taliban’s refusal to deal directly with the Karzai government.
The idea of transitional government also puts pressure on the Afghan government
to dilute its demands concerning the Taliban office in Qatar.
Another issue of note is the
Pakistani demand of weapons from UK. The armaments in question would most
likely be those being moved out of Afghanistan by the British troops as a part
of their drawdown. Pakistan has made a similar demand to the US coinciding with
the move of the first lot of containers from Afghanistan through Pakistan.
Third is the Pakistani desperation to get the SPA through comes from the fact
that NATO/ISAF countries are basing their training mission in Afghanistan post-
2014 on their respective SPAs signed with Afghanistan. India, unlike Pakistan,
having signed an SPA with Afghanistan is better placed to ramp up its training
role post- 2014. India has viewed with unease the British efforts to push
through the SPA between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It is widely believed that
British interlocutors had a leading role in the drafting of the five-point
peace process roadmap for Afghanistan which mainly addresses Pakistan and
Taliban interests in the region. There is a sense that the elements of the
erstwhile Northern Alliance, more favourable aligned to India, are being
sidelined in the peace process. India is also uncomfortable with the
distinction US has made between Al-Qaeda and other militant groups operating in
the region for pushing through the peace process. Taliban, TTP, IMU etc may not
pose any threat to the US but they definitely have security implications for
India.
Indian apprehensions also
stem from the fact that it believes the entire peace process is
Pakistan-centric and does not address the regional concerns. To that end India
is contemplating talks with Russia and China to give the peace process a more
regional outlook. India is also of the opinion that due consideration must be
given to the interests of countries which are investing, particularly in the
infrastructure sector, in Afghanistan. India feels that British intervention
through a hastily-cobbled deal between Afghanistan and Pakistan including
bringing the Taliban into the power structure in Kabul, aims to give the NATO
and the US an honourable exit from Afghanistan.
Conclusion
When viewed favourably it
can be said that the London trilateral represented a convergence of three of
the most important players in Afghanistan on the urgency of resolving issues
and making efforts towards peace through a political settlement. The big
question however remains whether Karzai has accepted the need to have a Taliban
office in Doha sans conditions and in turn his demand to be the sole Afghan
interlocutor with the Taliban has been accepted by the other concerned parties.
Monish Gulati
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