Qatar Assistant Foreign Minister Ali bin Fahd al-Hajri, right, and Taliban official
Jan Mohammad Madani, attend the ribbon for the Taliban office in Qatar in 2013
It looked too
much like the opening of a state embassy to Ex-Afghan President
Hamid Karzai, who immediately flew into a rage.
NATO Out: Ghani Looks to Beijing for Help with Pakistan, Taliban (Le Monde France)
"Pakistan
hosts the headquarters of the insurrection - and although it officially denies it,
with the goal of promoting its strategic (anti-India) interests in Afghanistan.
And China, Pakistan's nuclear godfather, has influence that Mr. Ghani would like to see used to bring Islamabad to a friendlier
disposition toward Kabul. There is some coherence in this triangle and it is
natural for Mr. Ghani to try and play it. … The new
Afghan president holds a trump card: the departure of the bulk of the NATO
troops reinforces his room to maneuver."
KABUL: It's no
coincidence that since his election at the end of September, AshrafGhani has made his first
official visits to China, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. These three countries hold
part of the solution to the puzzle that the new Afghan president faces: to
convince the insurgent Taliban chiefs to discuss peace with the Kabul regime. As
NATO's combat mission in Afghanistan has ended, the urgency is all the more
compelling.
Each country has its role to play. Wahhabi
Saudi Arabia remains the ideological inspiration for radical Sunni movements in
South Asia with whom the Afghan Taliban are tied. Pakistan hosts the
headquarters of the insurrection - and although it officially denies it, with the
goal of promoting its strategic (anti-India) interests in Afghanistan. And
China, Pakistan's nuclear godfather, has influence that Mr. Ghani
would like to see used to bring Islamabad to a friendlier disposition toward
Kabul. There is some coherence in this triangle and it is natural for Mr. Ghani to try and play it.
Political opponents
Since his inauguration, the Afghan president has launched an
appeal for dialogue with the Taliban. Carefully avoiding the term "terrorist,"
he has called on his "political opponents" to join in inter-Afghan
reconciliation. Will he be more fortunate than HamidKarzai? His predecessor spared nothing to seduce the
Taliban - to the point of calling them his "brothers" and spinning an
aggressive anti-Americanism at the end of his reign. Yet he failed miserably.
The reason? "There never was any
actual political will to talk on the part of the Karzai
government," says Abdul Hakim Mujahid, a former Taliban
senior diplomat who re-joined the Afghan Peace Council, a structure set up in
2010 by Mr. Karzai for discussions with the insurgent
leaders. Mr. Mujahid recalls that two initiatives
which not long ago seemed to be well underway - the Chantilly (Oise) Conference
organized by France in December 2012 and the opening of the Taliban office in
Qatar in June 2013 - were torpedoed by Mr. Karzai on
the grounds that the discussions had to be held in Afghanistan itself and not
abroad. "The then government was split, there was no harmony on the
subject," recalls Mr. Mujahid, who lived through
the psychodramas within the Peace Council.
The problem is that the other avenues explored by Mr. Karzai himself have been no more fruitful. Through his
brother Qayum who is charged with secret missions, he
tried to exchange messages with individuals linked to the hierarchy of the
Taliban movement. Whether it was contact with the Mullah Baradar [co-founder of the Afghan Taliban], arrested in
2010 in Karachi by the ISI, or the peace initiative in Dubai in February 2014
by Agha Jan Mutasim, a former
Taliban cabinet minister and a close aide of Mullah Omar, none of the routes favored
by Kabul's Presidential Palace ever succeeded. The Pakistanis really "put
the kibosh" on them, while Taliban leaders who have taken refuge in Quetta
(Baluchistan, Pakistani) seemed profoundly divided on the merits of dialogue
with Mr. Karzai’s regime.
Persistent
ambivalence of Kabul leaders
With the coming to power of AshrafGhani, the lines could move slightly. The office in
Qatar opened by the Taliban which they had closed as a result of Mr. Karzai’s
negative reaction, could find some usefulness again. "The office is still
formally closed, but remains available to establish contacts," explains
Mr. Mujahid. The new Afghan president holds a trump
card: the departure of the bulk of the NATO troops reinforces his room to
maneuver.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
But the obstacles that undermined Mr. Karzai’s efforts may
also block Ghani's path. In the first place there is "the
persistent ambivalence of Kabul leaders to enter a dialogue with the Taliban,"
according to Mr. Mujahid. Above all, though, the
right of veto Pakistan claims as the country which hosts the Taliban
leadership. Hence the importance that Mr. Ghani has
placed on enabling regional geopolitics to bring change to Pakistan.
The gamble remains a risky one, inasmuch as the new post-NATO
balance of forces between militaries is not yet clearly established. There is
every reason to believe that the Taliban, on the advice of Pakistan, will wait
until the battle front turns in their favor again before sketching out a dialogue.
From this perspective, an intensification of the fighting in the short- and
medium-term appears in the offing.
