Gen Beg’s biography On US official’s request, ex-COAS facilitated abortive US-Afghan Taliban talks in 2012

ISLAMABAD: Former Chief of Army Staff Gen (R) Mirza Aslam Beg has disclosed in his biography that in 2012, he was contacted by the US to pave the way for peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.

In his book ‘Iqtidar Key Majboorian’ he writes that though progress was made to initiate dialogue, the move was sabotaged. The Pentagon had ultimately stopped former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage from moving forward, he states.

Narrating the story, Beg says that in Feb 2012, he received a phone call from the US embassy in Islamabad, after a period of 20 years, saying that Armitage wanted to talk to him.

“[I was told] that his request was that I meet him for lunch the next day at the embassy and after that there would be a discussion. I replied that if Armitage wants to meet me, he should come to my house -- but I will not go to the embassy. They accepted the offer. After greetings, it was settled that the meeting would take place at 11am the following day. This was the same Armitage who after 9/11 had phoned Gen Musharraf and got seven conditions accepted by threatening him at a time when Musharraf was the most powerful man in Pakistan. I prayed to Allah Almighty for Armitage’s disgrace as he was the same person who was asking for my help today while yesterday, he was hurling threats at Pakistan.”

The former army chief said he had sensed that the US objective [of approaching him] was to establish contact with the Afghan Taliban. “Therefore, I had called Col Imam (Col Sultan Amir Tarar, now deceased) for my assistance.

The next morning, Armitage came to my house and became nervous after seeing Col Imam there. I introduced them. Armitage recognized that he had been Pakistan’s consul-general in Herat. Armitage then stated the purpose of his coming over and said he was the head of the US Senate Committee on Afghanistan and it desired talks with the Taliban. Col Imam said this is possible if you want to negotiate with sincerity and confidence. A detailed discussion took place, and it was decided that Armitage would remain in contact with us, and there was hope that we would be successful in our objective.”

According to Beg’s recently released biography, Col Imam approached the Taliban leadership, and in a few weeks, they received the names of five negotiators from the Taliban side, including three Pashtuns, one Tajik and one Hazara. The time and the venue [for dialogue] were to be settled after mutual consultations. Col Imam conveyed this news to the American guest with whom he had constant contacts via email. He also kept the concerned Pakistani authorities posted about the progress.

Beg said that while this process was on, Col Imam, accompanied by Wing Commander Khalid Khawaja, who was in touch with Pakistani jihadis, came to him. Khawaja told him that the UK’s Channel 4 had given him the task of shooting a documentary on the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and he would soon visit the border areas for this purpose.

The former army chief said he warned him that our frontier was very insecure and full of foreign agents. Therefore, it would be dangerous to go there. Khalid Khawaja replied that he has good friends there, who would look after him. Beg asked Col Imam whether he is accompanying Khalid Khawaja and he replied, ‘absolutely not’.

“But after a few days, I came to know that both had gone on this mission. I was surprised. Three days later, the news emerged that both were kidnapped when they were travelling from Miranshah to Mirali. This was reported in the press. Finally, both were killed.”

Beg said he sensed the same conspiracy behind this incident that had been at work to sabotage the progress on the contacts between Richard Armitage and the Taliban. When this was communicated to the Pakistani officials, “the same elements with negative thinking who had sabotaged our talks with the Pakistani Taliban, became active”, he said.

He said the irony is that six years after this incident, the US was again impatient for talks with the Afghan Taliban because the US forces and their intriguers were scared of the Taliban’s unrelenting attacks as they had no stamina left to further prolong the war. “The situation surrounding the US-Taliban parleys is interesting. Over the past several years, the dialogues had regularly failed. The reason was that after the withdrawal of its forces, the US wanted to keep some troops in Afghanistan, but the Taliban did not agree to that. The withdrawal plan in fact should have come eight years before in 2012 when it had become clear to the US that it had lost the Afghan war.”