| News Details |
| Is there a ‘downturn’ in Pak-Afghan ties? | |
By Manzoor Ahmed
Touted as “a new dawn” only weeks ago, the Pakistan-Afghanistan relations are facing problems. Respected Karachi daily has called it ‘downturn,’ but is inclined to blame Kabul for it.
A sternly worded letter by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, written to both civilian and military leadership of Pakistan (Ghani knows where the protocol lies and where lies the real power in Pakistan), demands tough action against Afghan Taliban who have launched a massive spring offensive, upsetting the Kabul regime.
Contents of Ghani’s letter, Dawn newspaper says, were leaked out to French news agency, AFP.
Ghani had fully cooperated with Pakistan after last December’s Peshawar school killings and had helped nab the militants involved who had taken refuge in Afghanistan. He thinks that it is time Pakistan returned the gesture when the spring offensive is on. But that is not happening.
Ghani has asked Nawaz Sharif, who had made a perfunctory condemnation of the Afghan Taliban while visiting Kabul last, to condemn the Spring offensive. That, too, is not happening.
There is systematic media management in Pakistan that blames Afghanistan for failing to deal with the offensive, conveniently ignoring the fact that the Afghan Taliban are operating from safe sanctuaries in Pakistan. Dawn, in its editorial on June 2 declares that “it is more improbable” that such a thing is happening.
Islamabad has placed “independent writers” and correspondents in Kabul who send out reports that toe the Pakistani line. The Afghan media is unable to match this offensive.
That the Afghan Taliban, formed into “Quetta Shoora” and “Peshawar Shoora” are operating from the respective areas in Pakistan is well-known, but Islamabad wants to generate amnesia and the world community, keen that somehow Ghani is able to reconcile with the Taliban, is keeping quiet about it. Indeed, no Taliban leader who might toe a line different from Islamabad, is free to travel outside Pakistan.
This world community (read major powers) is unable to persuade Pakistan to release the Taliban leaders who matter and facilitate talks. Even China, that received two Taliban officials in Beijing, the officials who travelled from Qatar, is unable to get Pakistan to part with these “strategic assets.”
Ghani’s letter to the two Sharifs demanded that Pakistan place Taliban leaders in Quetta and Peshawar under house arrest and detain members of the Taliban-allied Haqqani network “responsible for recent terror campaign in Afghanistan”.
Pakistan is not inclined to do any such thing. Indeed, it is not ready to even admit that these leaders are in Pakistan and under its control.
Instead, Islamabad is trying to escalate the Pak-Afghan tensions. Dawn editorial says: “But the fresh tension is not one-sided. In a meeting at the ISI headquarters late last week, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and army chief Gen Raheel Sharif are reported to have discussed the role that the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, may be playing inside Pakistan.”
Ghani is losing patience, and he made that apparent earlier during his India visit and later, in this letter leaked to French news agency AFP. He was hoping that Islamabad would play the ball. He has begun to send his soldiers for training to Pakistan. He even signed a pact between Pakistan’s ISI and the Afghan NSD, for which he faced criticism at home. But his conciliatory moves are not yielding results from Pakistan.
Pakistani media reports say Islamabad has told Kabul that it should not be held responsible for the spring offensive. The Afghan forces were “ready for long” to meet such an offensive where they would have to meet the challenge all by themselves, now that the foreign troops have been withdrawn.
The AFP report says: “Afghan officials have frequently accused Pakistan of harbouring and nurturing the Taliban, who are waging a 13-year war against local and foreign troops in the country. But Mr Ghani has actively courted Pakistan, since coming to power in what observers say is a calculated gambit to pressure the insurgents to the negotiating table.”
It is clear that Pakistan is doing all it can to thwart such a thing. Its proxy support to the Taliban – notwithstanding what it does to its own security, when its army is fighting the local Taliban variety through Zarb-e-Azb operation – is meant to keep Afghanistan on the boil and without resolution of the conflict that would deny it the coveted “strategic depth.”
(The writer is a Kashmir based freelance journalist)
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Scoop News and Scoop News does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.)
[email protected]... |
| |
|
|
Share this Story |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|