Pakistan has shown support for Afghanistan’s invitation to the Taleban to take part in a peace council but the old Taleban ally has only limited influence over the militants, who many expect will reject the offer.
The Afghan government on Thursday invited the Taleban to a jirga, or traditional council, during an international conference in London as its Western allies worked out plans to try to end the war in Afghanistan. Taleban representatives were not at the conference. A spokesman for the group said on Friday his leaders would decide soon whether to join the talks.
Pakistan, facing an insurgency by indigenous Taleban allied with the Afghan militants, wants a peaceful Afghanistan but more importantly, it wants the growing influence of old rival India in Afghanistan kept to a minimum. Pakistan is viewed with deep suspicion in Kabul because of its ties to the Taleban, whom Pakistan backed through the 1990s. The hard-line Islamists are the only Afghanistan faction over which Pakistan has any influence and can use as leverage to try to limit India’s influence, and for the time being, Pakistan is likely to tread very carefully. Main Taleban factions, such as those led by veteran guerrilla commander Jalaluddin Haqqani and supreme Taleban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, derive much support from supply networks and bases on the Pakistani side of the border.
As efforts to stabilize Afghanistan gather pace, Pakistan is likely to use those groups as bargaining chips, said Khadim Hussain of the Pakistan-based Aryana Institute think tank. “I don’t think Pakistan is going to put all of its cards on the table. They will try to keep some of them for their own interests and agenda,” Hussain said. “Pakistan will keep the whole thing very vague so it can address its own interests and foreign policy agenda.”
In an indication of the quickening pace of diplomacy, a UN official said members of the Taleban’s leadership council had secretly met the UN representative for Afghanistan in Dubai last month to discuss the possibility of laying down arms.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi said in London he was satisfied with the outcome of the international conference, which he said had addressed all Pakistani concerns. Pakistan has long stressed the need for talks and Qureshi said Pakistan would help, if asked. “Pakistan has said that we want the reconciliation process to be Afghan-led,” Qureshi told a news conference. “If the Afghans so desire, we are willing to facilitate.”
Underlining Pakistan’s determination to keep India out of any Afghan process, Qureshi expressed satisfaction a proposal to set up a regional body including India had been dropped. “Pakistan said there was no need for a new regional architecture ... Today, our point of view was understood and incorporated.”
But analysts said the question of Pakistani pressure on the Taleban to get them to the jirga might be irrelevant if, as they expect, the Taleban reject the invitation. “Pakistan does not have as much influence over the Taleban as it used to,” said a former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, Ayaz Wazir.
Even when Pakistan was one of three countries to recognize the Taleban government, they never took orders, he said. “They would listen to Pakistan but then do whatever they wanted. Why would they accept our advice now when they’re fighting on their own?,” Wazir said, adding he thought the Taleban would reject the invitation to talks. “If they wanted to take part in such jirgas then they wouldn’t have fought for eight or nine years,” he said. “They don’t accept Karzai and say he is imposed by the United States, then why would they join this? First they want foreign troops to leave.”
Veteran journalist and Afghan expert Rahimullah Yusufzai said the Taleban had shown signs of flexibility, saying they would not let Afghan soil be used for attacks on others in an apparent reference to reining in their Al-Qaeda allies. But he also said the Taleban were unlikely to attend the jirga and would repeat their demand for foreign troops to leave.
However, the jirga could lure some ethnic Pashtun tribes allied with the Taleban back to the fold, said Hussain. “I don’t think there is going to be any compromise by those Taleban closely linked to the international jihadist network,” he said.
“But as far as the affiliated tribes are concerned, they can be negotiated with.”
