Talks with the Taliban

Our will-they-wont-they dance with the Afghan Taliban has been going for many years, as we alternately agree to facilitate peace negotiations with them and deny any contact. Both these tendencies collided this week, as three of their members arrived in Islamabad from their Qatar office on Monday, but it was left to the Taliban themselves to provide first confirmation of the visit, even though their presence in the capital was not exactly a secret. What is still unclear is the purpose of this visit. The Taliban’s Qatar office issued a statement saying that the delegation was in Islamabad to discuss the issues of Afghan refugees and the release of senior leader Mullah Brader as well as other Taliban prisoners. Quite why we should be taking up the issue of refugees with the Afghan Taliban rather than discussing it solely with the elected government has not been explained. The prisoners issue is a more delicate one and one where we should also take the lead from the Afghan government. Reconciliation is needed between the Afghan government and the Taliban so that the country’s civil war can end; and our role should be one of facilitation. Before we take any decisions on releasing prisoners, it is thus essential that we discuss it with the Afghan government.

Any such discussions are unlikely to be fruitful right now since President Ashraf Ghani roundly condemned Pakistan in a recent speech to parliament and referred to the Taliban as our slaves. Afghanistan’s problem is that it has too many constituencies to please. It has to pursue negotiations with the Taliban as that is the only chance at peace but cannot be seen to do so with any enthusiasm, especially when the Taliban are launching their annual spring offensive. It also has to find a scapegoat for the Taliban’s ability to strike so often and so lethally. Pakistan’s alleged perfidy is the perfect scapegoat. This is why regional talks in New Delhi about Afghanistan this week have achieved little to nothing. There are emerging signs that the US is about to wash its hands off the region too. President Obama’s most recent budget request to Congress for financial assistance to Pakistan and Afghanistan is a combined $2 billion, with a 16 percent drop in funding from last year for the latter country while we get 60 percent less than we did in 2010. The Afghan government now will have to get its house in order and figure out what to do about the Taliban once the occupying power is no longer in the country.