Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban

A RUSH of diplomatic activity in the capitals of Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond brings hopes that the Afghan Taliban may yet be brought into peace talks. Years of manoeuvring and diplomatic platitudes appear, in the past few weeks, to be giving way to something more encouraging. Only in March, an effort in Qatar to begin dialogue between the United States and the Taliban collapsed before it had started. Suddenly, however, there is new optimism. The first sign of change came when Pakistan freed 18 low-ranking Taliban prisoners in November, apparently to encourage the Afghan insurgents to join talks. Authorities in Islamabad, Kabul, Washington and London all appear to want this. Pakistan is central to developments in Afghanistan because insurgents use its border areas as havens. The leaders of the Taliban and the Haqqani network, its ally, have been holed up in Pakistan since fleeing Afghanistan in 2001. As striking is evidence that outsiders are changing their views of Pakistan. For years the American-led coalition force inside Afghanistan, and President Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul, saw Pakistan almost as an enemy. Officials in Islamabad had long argued that Afghanistan’s war would end only when the Taliban were accommodated politically. But the Americans preferred to chase military victory, blaming failure on the insurgents’ sanctuaries in Pakistan.ow America’s ties with Pakistan have started to improve, just as outsiders are ready to give Pakistan a chance to foster a deal with the Taliban. Relations between the Pakistani and Afghan governments are also improving. Even last week’s attempted murder of Afghanistan’s intelligence chief, which Kabul officials blamed on a bomber from Pakistan, has not been allowed to strain ties. Minds are being focused because of the looming 2014 deadline for coalition forces to end combat operations in Afghanistan. After that, the likeliest outcome is a fragile state with an anaemic economy, a corrupt government, deep ethnic divisions and an army of limited strength. No government wants outright chaos, or civil war, so the urge to co-operate is growing. Take, for example, a plan produced by Mr Karzai’s High Peace Council, a body which is supposed to get insurgents to negotiate. It sets out how Pakistan will have to “facilitate direct contact” of the warring parties. The “Peace Process Roadmap to 2015” also foresees negotiations late next year between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Contentiously, too, it proposes that the Taliban should share power by getting “non-elected positions”, such as provincial governorships and other regional posts. The effect, in theory, would be to cede control of the south and the east of Afghanistan. The Taliban could also get ministerial positions in Kabul without winning any election. A Pakistani official says that while his government would try to persuade the Taliban, it “cannot force” it to negotiate. “They have to be convinced by the Afghan side,” he says, adding that Pakistan’s influence over the insurgents is exaggerated. Pakistan would also push for a ceasefire before any talks. On its side, the Taliban says it only wants direct talks with the United States, calling Mr Karzai’s government “puppets”. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told The Economist this week that “our problem is with the United States, and we do not see a role for any other country.” Yet the movement craves international respectability and understands it lacks the military clout simply to impose its rule on Afghanistan, even after 2014. Mr Mujahid said his group would attend an Afghanistan conference in Paris next week, “to convey our demands to the world, explain our policies and share our sentiments with the delegates”. These will include the Taliban’s old enemies, the Northern Alliance. The Pakistani push has come from a rare joint effort between the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, and the foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar. The diplomats’ role, in particular, has been to reach out to the Northern Alliance, seen as close to India. Pakistan is accused of treating the Taliban as its proxies in Afghanistan, as a bulwark against Indian influence there. But Afghan officials claim that the Pakistanis are less paranoid about India these days. Perhaps Pakistan’s greater concern now is to find ways to deal with the extremist menace at home. Chaos over the border in Afghanistan would make that harder. For the Americans, the priority is to get the Taliban at last to cut its loose ties to al-Qaeda. That would make a compromise with the Afghan group more palatable, and could perhaps lead to concessions over the Western-style Afghan constitution. What may come next is an attempt to revive the Qatar negotiations, perhaps involving the controversial release of Taliban inmates from Guantánamo Bay. An effort is under way to alter a United Nations blacklist of Taliban members, to allow the movement’s negotiators to travel. The diplomatic frenzy is based mostly on hope. Some, notably Afghan northerners, will fear a sell-out. Within the Taliban some commanders are also sure to object. Thus promises of a deal could easily turn to dust. But at least a political end to the war is being seriously explored.