Focus
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is trying to bring down political acrimony with Pakistan but at the same time he is upping the ante on other issues.
In his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month, he called for a dialogue with Pakistan and cooperation to eliminate terrorism from the region.
It followed a visit by army chief general Qamar Javed Bajwa to Kabul where Ghani maintained that Afghanistan and Pakistan are friendly countries and both should move towards enduring peace and stability.
However, during his recent visit to New Delhi, the Afghan president raised controversial issues in an apparent attempt to appease his Indian audience at the time when the US secretary of state Rex Tillerson was also in the region, in which he tried to pressurise Pakistan to do more to curb terrorism.
Speaking at a think-tank in New Delhi, Ghani said his country would not join the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) unless Indian goods are given overland access to the Afghan border via Wagah.
Interestingly, Ghani’s remarks came just days after his government’s representatives met their counterparts from Pakistan, China, and the United States in quadrilateral talks in Oman to revive peace talks with the Taliban
Ghani’s remarks might not go well with China given the efforts it is making to turn it into a huge success.
Unfortunately, it has become a hallmark of Ghani’s interaction with India that he would stir up controversial issues relating to Pakistan whenever he visits New Delhi.
During his first official visit to India after assuming office, Ghani has said he would not allow Pakistani goods to be transported to Central Asia unless Pakistan allows same facility to Indian goods destined for Afghanistan.
Ghani’s remarks might be music to many ears in New Delhi but some also threw a note of caution saying that comment might be reflective of centuries-old mentality of Afghan leaders to keep changing their positions as situation warrants.
“Ghani’s about turn should not come as a surprise,” an Indian newspaper wrote in its editorial.
“This is exactly how players in Afghanistan’s forever war shift their stances as the larger geopolitical wheels around them turn and spin. What Ghani’s statement indicates is that those wheels are presently moving in directions favourable to India.”
Pakistan has said time and again that it could not provide overland passage to the Indian goods because of its security concerns.
Such an attitude by Ghani would do more harm to Afghanistan than to Pakistan.
The CPEC is a huge intra-regional connectivity project linking South Asia, Central Asia, the gulf and beyond.
Its full potential could not be materialised until all regional countries join it.
However, Ghani should keep in mind that the work on CPEC is in full swing and it would be completed irrespective of whether Afghanistan or India joins it or not.
It is better for the Afghan president to make endeavours to reduce tensions In the region which would benefit his war-ravaged country the most, instead of raising unnecessary controversies that could deepen these tensions.
Afghanistan could establish trade links with India by circumventing Pakistan either through air or opting for long and expensive land cum sea routes, but the Afghan president as well as Indian leaders know very well that the easiest and natural link between Afghanistan and India passes through Pakistan alone.
The Indian government’s efforts to establish an air corridor for trade with Afghanistan has not been a much of a success.
India, in its bid to bypass Pakistan regionally, is also actively pursuing the Chahbahar deep sea port in Iran as counter-weight to Gwadar sea port.
There has been a lot of talk between Iran, Afghanistan, and India over this project, but there is still scepticism that whether Chahbahar could pose any serious challenge to Gwadar.
The Afghan government seeks permission from Pakistan for overland transport of the Indian goods on the principle of “sovereign equality”. In fact, this concession of sovereign equality has already been granted by Pakistan to Afghanistan as there is no restriction on it to transport its trade goods to the Karachi port for any other country, minus India for security reasons.
It is unfortunate that Kabul has repeatedly used the trade matters for political point scoring. Such issues need uninterrupted talks between the two neighbours to try to find out an amicable solution, but they need not make their bilateral matters hostage to those of any other country.
Ghani’s threat to opt out of the CPEC would only harm his own poor country as all regional countries, including Iran and Turkey, as well as those beyond the region have expressed willingness to join CPEC.
Even saner voices in India, including an influential section of their media, has advised their government that the CPEC offers a historic chance to New Delhi to link up to the major trans-regional connectivity network and it should not commit the blunder of staying out of it.
India has objected over the passage of the CPEC through the Kashmiri territory and the Indian-sponsored attacks in Pakistan, particularly in Balochistan, are in fact aimed against the CPEC, yet it has never officially ruled out the possibility of joining the project.
Strangely, the Kabul government sees into CPEC through only the Pakistani angle. The Afghan government should keep in mind that this is a project sponsored by China, which is pouring in huge money for reconstruction, while also playing an active role in finding a political settlement to the long-drawn conflict in the war-ravaged country.
The Afghan government could use CPEC as a major economic incentive to counter terrorism in the country, as it has the potential of leaning away a large number of young Afghans from militancy by offering them jobs.
The Afghan leaders might be aiming to get connected with China through the central Asian states. A few years back a freight train from China had arrived at the Hairatan port in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province via Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Similarly, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan last year opened a rail link that is set to be extended to neighbouring Tajikistan.
All these links are significant for connecting Afghanistan to other regional countries, but the nearest and the most feasible sea access for the poor, lank-locked country passes through Pakistan.
It is high time both for Pakistan and Afghanistan that in this era of enhanced intra- and inter-regional connectivity, they intensify their efforts to reduce the distrust which would pave the way for a political settlement of the lingering Afghan conflict and also as a result end up in the economic progress of the region.
They should know that unending bickering serves no good to either of them.
An invitation for the Afghan president to visit Pakistan is on the table. The sooner this long-awaited visit takes place the better.
The writer is a senior journalist based in Islamabad
