Re-Talibanisation to pose serious threat to Kabul, Islamabad: experts

LAHORE: Speakers at a panel discussion expressed fears that failure of peace talks between Taliban and the US could push Afghanistan into a process of re-Talibanization, which could not only harm security and stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan but also pose a threat to other countries of the region.

They were speaking at the session titled ‘Afghanistan, past and present: Lessons in continuity’, at the academic and literary festival ThinkFest on Saturday. The panellists included former senator and president Awami National Party Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Afrasiab Khattak, former official of Nato and researcher from the UK, Ms Susan Loughhead, and journalist from Germany Rupert Stone. Najam Sethi was the moderator. Susan Loughhead also exhibited a slide show on the pre-partition history of Afghanistan and the origin of Durand Line that still serves as the unmarked border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afrasiab Khattak said a growing realisation was in Pakistan that its policy of backing Taliban had badly failed, since they posed threats to the culture, ethnicity and internal peace in both countries, and now any possible re-Talibanization in Afghanistan would also bring such threats and damage infrastructure in the Pashtun belt.

Rupert Stone said Taliban were considered as a group frozen in time of stone age, professing draconian laws, sporting turbans and old dresses, wielding weapons and suppressing women and freedoms. He said Taliban must have to change all those perceptions, keep diplomatic contacts with world powers and regional states and take the non-Pashtun population along. He said it was heartening that Taliban had already included 20 per cent non-Pashtuns in their ranks including Tajiks, Uzbeks and Persian speaking people. He said Taliban look incapable of unifying Afghanistan unless they join hands with non-Pashtun leaders like Dostum and others.

Replying to queries, he said Afghanistan could rebuild like Japan, Germany and Europe only after fulfilling above mentioned conditions since the country had vast natural resources.

Earlier, speaking at the session titled ‘US-Pak Relations: The Mirage of Expectations’, the panellists observed that Pakistan’s relations with US had always been that of client state, and Islamabad could only manage to change this status by attaining financial independence and self-reliance.

The panellists included former foreign minister and PPP leader Hina Rabbani Khar and Moeed Yusuf, Associate Vice President USIP, USA, while senior journalists Ejaz Haider was moderator.

Hina Rabbani Khar lamented that Pakistan’s foreign policy was beggars’ policy, saying we had not learnt lesions from the 17-year war, adding that we must get out of it and refuse to become front-line state again. She said Pakistan had suffered the maximum damage of the war.

Citing China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), she said though the project promised benefits for the country, yet it is still full of scepticism, showing that we had not divorced the attitude of being a client state towards the stronger countries. She also dispelled the idea that whatever happened in the country was the handiwork of the CIA, RAW etc.

She said we must not pin high hopes on the US any more, saying that despite being front-line state and the most suffered ally, the US had put Pakistan at number 54 on the list of countries it had trade partnerships.

Minhajul Quran leader and director of Minhaj Unviersity, Dr Hussain Mohayyuddin Qadri said without first reforming the education system on Western lines, the country couldn’t fight extremism and terrorism, and suggested that Pakistan should also adopt Malaysia model of giving licence to prayer leaders before appointing them to any mosque, and clamp a complete ban on foreign funds to any religious party or seminary.

He was speaking at the session titled “Extremism and Muslim South Asia’ at the academic and literary festival ThinkFest. Salman Abid from IDEA was the moderator.

Dr Hussain Qadri reminded that Allama Iqbal also raised the slogan of Western and Eastern education system for countering extremism. He said Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded West inspired education system in Aligarh University. He said the country suffered division, sparked by edicts (Fatwas) of infidelity (kufr) while the US and Western countries sent trillions of dollars down the drain in 17-year war which badly failed in eliminating extremism and terrorism.