Diplomatic flurry over peace talks
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
ISLAMABAD - Afghan President Hamid Karzai has a love-and-hate relationship with
Pakistan's military establishment. In the late 1990s, he stood up against the
Pakistan army-supported Taliban regime in Afghanistan and as a consequence he
lost his father and was forced to take refuge in an upscale neighborhood of the
southern Pakistani port city of Karachi.
Everything changed with the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan that
toppled the Taliban in late 2001, thrusting Karzai back into the spotlight.
Under American pressure, Pakistan did not have any choice but to support him.
In 2004, Islamabad rallied support for Karzai's election campaign in Pakistan's
Afghan refugee camps. Similar support came in 2009.
With the Afghan war at a critical stage and US President Barack
Obama due to give an official review of Afghan strategy in December, Washington
and the allied Pakistan military cannot afford to change horses in mid-stream.
Washington will therefore be hoping for a sizeable pro-Karzai constituency in
the parliament that is due to be elected on Saturday.
As in the past, the Pakistan army will use its connections with the Taliban to
press for as little election violence as possible - if not a ceasefire - in the
Pashtun-dominated south to smooth the way for pro-Karzai candidates.
Diplomats keeping busy
The Afghanistan Study Group, a gathering of 46 foreign-policy experts including
critics of the war and some who until recently supported US policy, is due to
meet in the US on Friday. It has invited some mediators from the Afghan
resistance. Karzai, along with the US's top man in Afghanistan, General David
Petraeus, recently met Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani to work
out measures to prevent poll violence.
Immediately after the elections, all key international players will meet in
Pakistan to help the US make a decision ahead of December on whether it will
begin a withdrawal from Afghanistan as planned for next year or continue
fighting.
Earlier, as a part of the diplomatic flurry, United States special envoy for
Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke visited Pakistan, followed by Karzai
and Petraeus. One of the main topics was to reinforce Karzai's position in
Kabul so that he will be in a position to deal with whatever emerges, be it
peace with the Taliban or war with them. Kiani and the director general of the
Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, were also
involved.
The next key person to visit Pakistan will be Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz,
Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief who is also a special envoy of King Saud
assigned to deal with the Taliban. Aziz is expected within the next few days.
Contacts familiar with the process have told Asia Times Online that
"high-profile" meetings have been lined up for Aziz in safe houses during which
he will try his level best to make a breakthrough in the nascent peace process
between the Taliban and the US. Asia Times Online has exclusively reported that
preliminary talks between the Taliban and the US have begun, with the Pakistan
military and Saudi Arabia acting as go-betweens. (See
Taliban and US get down to talks September 10, 2010.)
On September 25, former United Arab Emirates ambassador to Pakistan Ali
Mohammad al-Shamsi, who enjoyed personal relations with the Taliban leadership
and who is now the UAE's envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, will arrive in
Pakistan. He will spend two days in the country to deliver his feedback on the
most recent talks with the Taliban. He will also have some "high-profile"
meetings with his erstwhile Taliban friends.
Shamsi will then travel to Afghanistan to give his input to Petraeus and
Karzai. This interaction will be reflected in a new report by the Afghanistan
Study Group, which in turn will play a part in the US's December strategy
review.
With time running out, Washington is gradually agreeing to major concessions
with the Taliban. A previous distinction between "reconcilable Taliban"
(non-ideological or less ideologically motivated) and "irreconcilable Taliban"
(the ideologically motivated hardcore led by Mullah Omar) has been simplified
into "Taliban" and "al-Qaeda-linked Taliban".
Despite these peace moves, Taliban attacks in Afghanistan continue unabated. A
visibly nervous Washington is aware that the next steps will become
increasingly tougher, and that in Mullah Omar they have a stubborn and possibly
capricious adversary who could easily take the whole process back to square
one.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can
be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com
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