Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council of National Reconciliation in Afghanistan, will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. This is the first official visit by Abdullah to India after he took over as Afghanistan’s top peace negotiator.
Abdullah is also scheduled to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Friday. His visit is part of the on-going mission to keep India—an important ally of Afghanistan—in the loop on the negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban. Last month, the US Special Representative on Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad—the mastermind behind the US-Taliban deal—was in Delhi to meet Jaishankar, foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and NSA Ajit Doval.
Khalilzad had come with a message. “India is an important force in Afghanistan and it would be appropriate for that (India-Taliban) engagement to take place,” he had said in an interview to The Hindu. The presence of Jaishankar at the peace talks in Doha on May 12 indicated that India— which was so far unwilling to open communication channels with the Taliban—is ready to shift positions.
The presence of MEA's joint secretary for Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran (PAI) division, J.P. Singh at the Doha conference too suggested that the South Block is taking into account the new reality on the ground— that the Taliban will no longer be out of the government in Kabul, but a part of it. Jaishankar had emphasised that the peace process must be “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled”, and that there is a need to “respect national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan” and “promote human rights and democracy”. India had so far resisted being in the room with the Taliban, especially as the Afghan government had been kept out too.
For India, dealing with the Taliban comes with the memories of 1999 Kandahar hijacking and Pakistan calling the shots subsequently. The sway that Pakistan continues to hold over Afghanistan is obvious. Afghanistan has appointed Mohammad Omar Daudzai—a diplomat—as a special envoy to Pakistan. This was after Pakistan had appointed a special representative for Afghanistan. Daudzai, who was one of the first people Indian negotiators met when they landed in Kandahar in 1999, has been tasked with “mending political relations’’ between the two countries. In an interview in June, he had said: “Pakistan has a positive role in the US-Taliban peace talks.’’
Significantly, Abdullah’s visit to India comes after his visit to Pakistan where he met Prime Minister Imran Khan and Pakistan Army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. His visit to Islamabad last week comes at a time when the talks between the Afghan negotiating team and the Taliban have not seen much progress. There is no doubt he would be hoping that Pakistan would exert pressure on the Taliban.
His India visit too is aimed at seeking the country's support to build a climate for peace. Afghanistan is certainly wary of triggering further tensions between India and Pakistan as the changing dynamics in Kabul is expected to affect India-Pakistan relations. Laurel Miller, who was acting special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to mid-2017, had said in an interview: “The US also needs a result that doesn’t destabilize regional security dynamics, like intensifying competition between Pakistan and India over Afghanistan.’’
So far, the road ahead is rocky, endless and uncertain. President Ashraf Ghani is in Doha to hold bilateral talks in Qatar. He, however, officials claim, will not hold talks with the Taliban. The US too is trying to push the talks along. Khalilzad said in a series of tweets: “General Miller and I affirmed ongoing US support to Afghanistan, our partnership, and a peace process meant to produce a political settlement and an end to decades of war. I told the President Afghans should not let the opportunity for peace to slip away. He said he supports the Islamic Republic negotiators doing their work as long as it takes.’’
It is likely to be a long haul. Despite the peace talks that began in Doha on September 12—with all the world watching virtually—there has been no reduction in violence. On Monday, there was a suicide attack on the convoy of the governor of Laghman province, in which eight people were killed and 30 injured. Last Saturday, a car bomb explosion in Nangarhar province killed 16 people.
The sticking points still remain: the Taliban wants Hanafi school as the only way of jurisprudence, as BBC reported, without any space for the Shia personal law or other minorities. The Taliban is also pressing for the US-Taliban agreement to be the basis for the talks ahead. Then, of course, there are other hot-button issues, including the rights of women. The Afghan negotiating team has women in it—emphasizing that they will play a role in the government. It won't be easy, but the Afghans so far are unwilling to give up on it.
