Afghan peace :
Pakistan to walk tightrope
PAKISTAN: Pakistan will need to walk a tightrope to secure its
interests in US-backed reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan, at risk of
being sidelined by the Taliban and the Kabul Government, analysts say.
British and US newspapers have been awash with reports on the nature
of peace efforts needed to end the nine-year Taliban insurgency and
allow the 150,000 US-led NATO contingent in Afghanistan to withdraw.
The Taliban have denied any talks are taking place, and Afghan and
Pakistani experts on insurgent groups dismiss such reports as as Western
propaganda.
But Pakistan is determined to ensure that an allied Government is in
power in Kabul once the United States and its allies have withdrawn
their troops from from Afghanistan.
Washington and Kabul agree there can be no peace in Afghanistan
without cooperation from Pakistan, which has repeatedly offered to
facilitate reconciliation efforts.
For 10 years, Islamabad has been America's ally in the war, despite
widespread public opposition and militant bomb attacks across the
nuclear-armed country that have killed more than 3,740 people in three
years.
But Pakistan is not trusted fully by either the Afghan and US
Governments, which accuse its powerful military of continuing to foster
the Afghan Taliban it spawned during the 1980s resistance to the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan.
Pakistan and Afghanistan also share a large ethnic Pashtun
population, which traditionally does not recognise the border drawn
between the two countries in the British colonial era and from whom the
bulk of the Taliban are drawn.
"We are in contact with all ethnic groups, not just Pashtuns, in
Afghanistan," said one Pakistani official on condition of anonymity.
Yet Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said late last month that
Afghan President Hamid Karzai had yet to brief the Government on his
plans.
"It is not necessary that we're in the loop at every stage or kept
informed of all developments or meetings," said the Pakistani official.
Pakistan considers Afghanistan a strategic asset, where a friendly
government in Kabul can help offset the increasing power flexed by arch
rival India. Hence its diplomatic recognition of the 1996-2001 Taliban
regime.
Afghan insurgents with rear bases in Pakistan's tribal belt, which
are subject to an escalating US drone war, criss-cross the porous border
with ease. Islamabad, AFP |