Taliban, US in new round of peace
talks By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - The few weeks between the visits
to Pakistan of Richard Boucher, the US assistant
secretary of state who left last week, and Deputy
Secretary of State John Negroponte, who arrives on
September 10, could prove crucial in determining
the fate of Afghanistan.
This is the
timeline for secret three-party talks to establish
teega (a Pashtu word for a peace deal that
resolves a conflict) between the Western coalition
forces in Afghanistan (with Pakistan), the
Afghan government, and the
anti-coalition insurgents of Afghanistan. The
first round of talks has already begun in the
southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, Asia Times
Online has learned.
The outcome of the
talks will to a large extent decide the agenda of
Negroponte's visit and the course of the US-led
"war on terror" in the region.
The talks
are based on previous Pakistan-inspired efforts to
secure peace deals between the insurgents and the
Western coalition in specific areas in Afghanistan
with the longer-term goal of incorporating the
Taliban into the political process both in Kabul
and in provincial governments.
Similar
deals were struck last year in the southwestern
Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and
Urzgan, but they lapsed. In addition to reviving
these, the talks aim to include the southeastern
provinces of Kunar and Khost. The negotiators are
Taliban commanders, Pakistani and American
intelligence members, and Afghan authorities.
The Taliban, under the command of Mullah
Mansoor (brother of the legendary Mullah Dadullah,
who was killed in battle this year), are in
Satellite town, Quetta, to talk of teega.
The next rounds are scheduled for Peshawar, the
provincial capital of North-West Frontier
Province, and in the Waziristan tribal areas with
Taliban commanders of the southeastern provinces.
Specifically, the deals aim to stop
violence in selected areas and give the Taliban
limited control of government pending the
conclusion of a broader peace deal for the country
and the Taliban's inclusion in some form of
national administration.
The Taliban and
coalition forces struck limited ceasefire deals
last year in Kandahar and Helmand provinces (see
the Asia Times Online series In the land of the
Taliban of December 2006). These
included the districts of Musa Qala, Baghran,
Nawzad, Sangeen, Kajaki and Panjwai. However, to
preempt the Taliban's planned massive uprising
this year, coalition forces ended the ceasefires
last December and engaged the Taliban in conflict.
As a result, the Taliban changed their
plan and diverted to the northwestern areas of
Farah and Badghis and also increased their
activities in Ghazni, Kunar, Gardez, Khost and
Nangarhar. Instead of face-to-face battles, as in
the successful spring offensive of 2006, they
refined their tactics in asymmetric warfare and
carried out targeted actions, especially on
development projects.
Rebuilding peace
- and pipelines Coalition efforts in
Afghanistan include substantial development and
reconstruction projects, but these have been
hampered by the insurgency. A key project is a
regional oil and gas pipeline project worth US$10
billion that will run from Turkmenistan via
Afghanistan to Pakistan, the TAP, and possibly on
to India, on which work is to be started in the
near future.
A US company, International
Oil Co (IOC), recently won the contract from
Pakistan to construct the 2,200-kilometer pipeline
over the next three years. In a statement, IOC
said matters relating to security in Afghanistan
and insurance guarantees had been finalized. The
preferred route is the southern one, via Herat and
restive Kandahar province.
Clearly, peace
deals with the Taliban would help ensure the
viability of such projects. But whether any deals
struck will last is another matter. Taliban leader
Mullah Omar is still not entirely behind them, and
there is always the issue of al-Qaeda stirring
trouble.
In the short term, though, the
Taliban are likely to embrace the idea - provided
they are given the realistic carrot of political
gains - as they are in the process of refining a
new command structure and need the breathing
space.
However, many commanders based in
the southeast are convinced that it would be a big
blunder for the Taliban to slow down their
activities for the sake of any deal. Instead, they
want to seize this opportunity and drive for a
bigger bargain, such as the withdrawal of all
foreign forces.
The West's
perception Contrary to the Cold War era's
Central Asian focus, Afghanistan is now seen in
terms of the South Asian region, especially with
regard to the struggle between Pakistan and India
for strategic political and economic influence.
The ultimate goal now is to shut down this
war theater, which has bred global militancy, so
that initiatives such as the TAP can go ahead. TAP
is the US alternative to a planned pipeline from
Iran to Pakistan and India.
Similarly,
Western intelligence is convinced that Taliban and
al-Qaeda assets in Pakistan are the root cause of
the Taliban's insurgency in Afghanistan, as
confirmed in the United States' latest National
Intelligence Estimate. Thus nothing could be
gained by fighting a lone battle in Afghanistan's
mountainous fastness.
So Pakistan was
warned this year to eliminate the safe havens of
the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Islamabad was provided
with a map of their assets and asked for an action
plan. It was emphasized that coalition troops
across the border in Afghanistan would be ready to
take care of all "voids" Pakistan was not able to
deal with in its own territory. But the Taliban
have since left most of their known bases in
Pakistan. (See Taliban a step ahead of US
assault, Asia Times Online, August 11,
2007.)
The US now accepts that Pakistan
still has access to and influence with the
Taliban, unlike the government in Kabul. This
realization eventually prompted Washington to
sponsor the recent Pakistan-Afghanistan peace
jirga (council) in Kabul to identify new
players in the game before the "war on terror"
enters a new phase in which the battlefield
includes both Pakistan and Afghanistan, rather
than Afghanistan alone.
The ongoing peace
talks with the Taliban on Pakistani soil are a
continuation of this process.
Syed
Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan
Bureau Chief. He can be reached at
saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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