From Raheel Sharif’s visit to Kabul to quadrilateral peace talks

On Sunday, December 27 General Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s chief of army stuff, came to Kabul for one-day trip and met with Afghan officials. His trip is taking place at a times when Indian PM Narendra Modi has recently visited to Kabul to inaugurate newly build Afghan Parliament with Indian assistance.

Pakistanis are always sensitive to Indian officials’ visits to Afghan capital.

Raheel Sharif’s visit to Kabul was supposed before the Heart of Asia Conference; however, the visit was postponed due to tensions between the two countries.

Before Raheel Sharif’s visit to Kabul, Pakistani officials reported about quadrilateral peace talks between the United States of America, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan that may start in Kabul or Islamabad in the near future, which would discuss the issue of peace in Afghanistan.

Return to peace talks

The Pak-Afghan meetings at the sidelines of Heart of Asia Conference in Islamabad were considered as a new impetus to Pak-Afghan bilateral relations and once again raised hopes regarding Peace process. After the Shah Shaheed explosions, Ashraf Ghani repeatedly criticized Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan, but it seems that Pakistanis have considered these protests as periodical and weatherly like before and due to Afghanistan’s problems, they believed that Afghanistan’s needs would not allow it to have a long-term tensions with Islamabad and thus Islamabad was waiting for a favorable opportunity to appease Ghani.

The opportunity was provided in the Heart of Asia Conference in Pakistan and Pakistani officials once again give a warm welcome to Ashraf Ghani and showed its readiness to reinitiate peace talks with Taliban with the mediation of Pakistan.

Ashraf Ghani’s trip to Islamabad and his speech in the Heart of Asia Conference, prompted protests among afghan politicians and even the resignation of national security chief Rahmatullah Nabil was also connected with the issue, however, tensions between Nabil and Hanif Atmar has long been heard.

Pakistani newspapers considered the resignation of Nabil from National Security Directorate as resignation of one of the opponents of Pakistan from afghan government and welcomed it.

Has Pakistan’s Afghan policy changed?

Pakistan follows a complex policy regarding Afghanistan and in the most cases deep differences between its officials is clear, and this has impacted relations between the two countries to experience warm and cold periods in the last fourteen years. If we look at the dynamics of the relations between two countries during the years following American attacks on Afghanistan, now and then the warm relations is followed by tensions and cold relations.

The fact that relations between two countries has never been on a continuous basis in a good or bad way, we have to conclude that, this was a long-term policy of Islamabad and based on its strategy towards Afghanistan. Such a policy we may call as “waiting” policy in which Pakistan needs the element of “time” to access its desired future. Based on this policy, whenever Pakistan comes under pressure to accept obligation for Afghanistan, does something that forces Afghanistan to oppose and thus Pakistan uses time to its benefit and also responsibility of coldness of relations between the two countries lies on Afghanistan. In this regard Pakistan acts so subtly that even firing rockets and cannons from that country to the border regions of Afghanistan is considered as an act against terrorism by the United States of America and in this regard Afghanistan’s protests is ignored.

In the recent visit of Raheel Sharif to Kabul, Pakistani-side not only promised to help the peace process in Afghanistan, but stressed that those who oppose the peace process will be suppressed. This may has led the afghan government to get closer to Pakistan once again.

A Big Concern: Kabul’s relationship with India

In the past fourteen years, Pakistan has become weaker against its main rival “India” because of economic, political and security problems. India over these years, with its dynamic economy has added to its reputation as one of Asia’s major economies, while Pakistan at the same time has not only displayed the image of a country which is involved in violence but also deemed to be the source to export violence to other countries.

India has made major contributions to Afghanistan during the past fourteen years, and has allocated the face of a good and honest friend not only among government officials but also among the general population of Afghanistan.

Coincided with the trip of Indian Prime Minister, some Pakistani media has once again noted the existence of more than a dozen Indian consulates in Afghanistan, and alleged them with intelligence activities against Pakistan, including the Indian consulate in Kandahar is said to be helping Baloch separatists against Pakistan.

It seems that the main problem of Pakistan in Afghanistan is Indian role in the country; but recently the efforts to improve relations between India-Pakistan are also going on that would also positively impact situations in Afghanistan.

The central issue at the Heart of Asia Conference was to reduce the tensions between India and Pakistan, and it seems that some progress has been made in this regard. After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kabul, he in an unexpected manner traveled from Kabul to Lahore to have a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif. The meeting was so unexpected that many senior officials in Pakistan, even international affairs advisor to Pakistani Prime Minister Sartaj Aziz was not aware of it and therefore had not been able to participate at a reception which was arranged by Nawaz Sharif in honor of Indian prime minister.

Before the trip, the start of gas pipeline “TAPI” which is supposed to bring Turkmenistan’s gas through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India, have provided the way to a good cooperation between the two rival countries in the region. These are all good signs of reducing tensions in the region that could affect the security situations in Afghanistan.

The Quadrilateral meeting

Before Raheel Sharif’s visit to Kabul, the international affairs advisor to Pakistani Prime Minister Sartaj Aziz told the media that quadrilateral meeting between Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States of America and China will be held in Islamabad. He said that in this quadrilateral meeting a committee will be formed to oversee and provide solutions for peace talks of Afghanistan.

Sartaj Aziz’s remarks attract the mind to an important point, while afghan government has always claimed that the government of Afghanistan should have the first and decisive role in peace talks, then why afghan authorities has never spoken about the possibility of convening a quadrilateral conference about Afghanistan? This could be, due to the ignorance of Afghanistan from decisions made about Afghanistan among other countries, and Afghanistan is to be made aware after others and even after Pakistan.

But Afghans have once felt the bitter taste of such quadrilateral meetings. On the eve of Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the quadrilateral conference in Geneva was organized among the countries of America, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in order to secure peace in Afghanistan, and marked an ominous future for Afghanistan. At the Geneva conference no representative of Mujahideen participated, in fact Pakistan represented them.

Afghanistan is once again on the eve of another quadrilateral conference which will be organized with the past failed experience; the only difference is now that the former Soviet Union is replaced with China.

These four countries, in the absence of Taliban are supposed to decide about peace talks of afghan government with armed oppositions and approve solutions for peace in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the United Nations applicable sanctions on the Taliban once again extended for another year.

Taliban while condemning this action of the United Nations, called it an obstacle in the way of peace in Afghanistan. Part of these sanctions has blacklisted the names of some Taliban leaders.

On the other hand, a question rises which group of Taliban does Pakistan bring to the negotiation table? If those who were brought to table on behalf of Taliban did not represent war fronts of the Taliban, what benefit will such negotiations have?

In such an environment full of contradictions and ambiguities, can we have hope for the negotiation with the outcome of peace for the war-torn country?

The End