In an attempt to foster peace in the region, Afghanistan’s President
Ashraf Ghani pursues a strategy of dialogue and reconciliation with Pakistan,
Afghanistan’s Eastern neighbour and the Taliban’s erstwhile backer. With
Pakistan and China offering their support, latest peace initiatives appear more
promising than recent attempts. There are signs of cooperation and improving
relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan as the Pakistani government
threatened to arrest or expel Taliban leaders, in case they refuse to negotiate
with the Afghan government. In return, Afghanistan has made ‘a string of once
unthinkable concessions to Pakistan’ (Guardian, 10.03.2015) and targeted
strongholds of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) in its eastern provinces
neighbouring Pakistan.
However promising developments appear, scepticism about the prospects
for peace remains. One major obstacle is the internal rift within the Taliban,
which informs the commonly used differentiation between the Taliban as a whole
and the so-called ‘reconcilable elements of the Taliban’. Hence, while political
leader Akhtar Mohammad Mansour is in favour of engagement, commander Abdul
Qayum Zakir, who used to be detained in Guantanamo and holds sway over several
thousand fighters in eastern Afghanistan, opposes negotiations. According to
Reuters, attempts of Mansour to overcome differences with his opponent and
convince him to join the negotiating table failed as Zakir believes that only
the United States hold real power in the region and negotiations with the
Afghan government will be irrelevant.
A further obstacle threatens to delay peace talks – the irreconcilable
demands of the Taliban in return for negotiations. In a recent interview, one
of Ghani’s aides presumes that the Taliban will not only demand an immediate
departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan but also a re-imposing of the
harsh interpretation of Islamic law, the movement had enforced during its rule.
These demands would be unacceptable for the Afghan government and hence pose
the threat of another diplomatic deadlock. The upcoming weeks and months will
be crucial for Afghanistan, Pakistan and the future stability of the entire
region. One can only hope that Ghani’s attempts succeed and the Taliban will
join the government at the negotiating table.
