India's Afghan Muddle by Harsh V. Pant

Author:Harsh V. Pant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 5

REGIONAL REALITIES:

AS COMPLICATED AS EVER

‘We need a just and enduring peace, not a quick deal with the Taliban. The Taliban talk about girls’ education and political pluralism now, but they think that after the NATO troops withdraw, they can conquer and rule us again … We will never sacrifice a single Afghan’s rights just to get settlement with the Taliban.’

—Ismael Qasimyar, Afghan Peace Council member,

in May 2013

ALL MAJOR REGIONAL PLAYERS AND global powers are struggling to come to terms with the aftermath of the withdrawal of NATO-led Western military forces from Afghanistan. Regional cooperation, time and again, has been declared as the only viable alternative to the festering regional tensions that have plagued the country for decades. Various South and Central Asian governments, for example, have underscored that they recognize that Afghanistan’s problems of terrorism, narcotics trafficking and corruption affect them all and have to be addressed through cooperative efforts. In November 2011, they adopted the Istanbul Protocol that committed countries as diverse as China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Russia to cooperation in countering terrorism, drug trafficking and insurgency in Afghanistan and in the neighbouring areas.1 In this context, Afghanistan’s traditionally divisive neighbours pledged to support its efforts to reconcile with insurgent groups and to work together on joint security and economic initiatives to build long-term Afghan stability. The participants embraced a new Silk Road strategy that envisages a dynamic Afghanistan at the heart of South and Central Asian trade and economic relationships.

The Istanbul effort was touted as a regional endeavour to solve a major regional issue, and the very fact that so many regional states came together to at least articulate a policy response was indeed a step in the right direction. The US also reached out to regional powers in order to bring them into Afghanistan more substantively. Former Special US Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James F. Dobbins and his successor Daniel Feldman engaged governments in the region to assess the role they could play in bringing long-term peace to the country. The Afghan government too underlined the role of regional cooperation in securing peace in the country. Afghanistan’s ambassador to India, Shaida Abdali, made clear in 2012: ‘In the months and years ahead, the opportunity to further secure and develop Afghanistan will widen for regional leadership and cooperation. We look forward to working with India and our other neighbours to consolidate the collective gains made towards durable peace in Afghanistan. Collective success is very much within our reach in Afghanistan. But it will only result from sincere cooperation among all our neighbours.’2

But the practical difficulties in implementing the vision of regional cooperation remained as stark as ever because of regional power struggles. Turkey, for example, made a public effort to try to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan. As a result of this, Karzai and Zardari agreed to a joint inquiry into the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was in charge of negotiations with the Taliban as head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council. But it did not lead to a significant normalization of ties between Islamabad and Kabul.

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