Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Afghanistan Needs Pakistan’s Support on Reconciliation: US

Afghanistan Needs Pakistan’s Support on Reconciliation: US

WASHINGTON: As diplomats from regional countries converged on Istanbul to mull a viable way forward in Afghanistan, the United States recognized that Kabul needs support of its eastern neighbor Pakistan to propel forward the reconciliation process. "It's always been our view, and it's certainly always been Afghanistan's view, that an Afghan-led reconciliation process needed the support both of the United States and of the Government of Pakistan," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland noted.

She was answering a question about a report in The Washington Post that Islamabad is being offered a principal role under a revised strategy geared towards finding a political end to the decade-old Afghan conflict.
With their eyes set on 2014 NATO deadline of complete transfer of security responsibility to Afghan police, diplomats from several Western and Asian countries will contemplate a regional approach to 'Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia,' the title of the moot.

The conference is bringing together fourteen regional countries including Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenisan, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates.

Germany, France and other Western countries with troops deployed in Afghanistan were sending envoys to show support. US deputy secretary of state is representing Washington as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton canceled her trip to be at the her mother's side, who passed away Tuesday morning.

A series of reports in the American media lately suggest that Pakistan - which shares a 2600-mile long border with Afghanistan, has influence over Pushtoon populations and has been on the forefront of fight against al-Qaeda linked militants over the last decade- will likely assume a key role as the Afghan reconciliation process moves forward.

A trilateral summit of Pakistani, Afghan and Turkish presidents preceded the conference as Islamabad and Kabul attempted to strike convergences for a political way out of the lingering conflict that began in the wake of 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

The US -led international forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001 in order to get rid of al-Qaeda militants who had found safe haven in Afghanistan for several years. A spate of terrorist attacks in Kabul last month- blamed on the Afghan Haqqani militants - heightened security concerns about peace prospects in war-weary Afghanistan.

At the State Department briefing Tuesday, spokesperson Victoria Nuland remarked that the Washington Post story - on revised strategy - was "a little bit overwritten" as it implied something very new in Washington's approach to the process.

But the spokesperson's comments clearly indicated that Pakistani support in dealing with Afghan militants including asking the reconcilable Taliban to join the Afghan peace process would be vital to what happens on the Afghan side of the border.

"I think the point here of fight, talk, build is that as we support the Afghans in their offensive in the safe havens on their side of the border, we also need the Pakistanis to be vigorous on their side of the border, and we're prepared to support that.

"As we support an Afghan-led effort to talk, the Pakistanis also have to be signaling to Taliban who may be reconcilable on their side of the border that they support talk within the Afghan red lines and that this is what it's going to take, everybody pulling together, squeezing together, and encouraging talk together."

Nuland explained that the US has been talking for at least two years about supporting Afghan-led reconciliation within the Afghan red lines.
"I think the issue here is trying to help the Afghans and the Pakistanis be on the same page with regard to the parameters of talking. At the same time that we are making sure that as we talk about talking, that those who are not willing to reconcile know that the Afghans, with our support, are going to keep fighting them and that we're pressing the Pakistanis to also squeeze them."

Washington, she said, is trying to get these countries pulling in the same direction, under an Afghan lead and within the red lines and constraints that the Afghans have put out that we have supported, namely that if there are fighters junior level, medium level, senior level, willing to come off the battlefield, they have to make absolutely clear they are breaking their ties with al-Qaida, they are prepared to support the constitution of Afghanistan in all of its elements, including its support for the rights of women, and they are renouncing violence." (APP)