Excluding govt likely to end in talks failure
As the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan rumbles on, the United States and the Taliban have reportedly held talks aimed at finally bringing peace and security to the country.
However, their exclusion of the government risks derailing the process before it even starts.
Peace talks with the Taliban have been going on for more than three years, but have so far proved fruitless, for a variety of reasons.
Stakeholders, mainly Pakistan, nudged the Taliban to the negotiating table as the first direct talks, observed by Pakistani, Chinese and US representatives, were held between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives on July 7, 2015 in the resort town of Murree, adjacent to Islamabad. But they were halted by news of Mullah Omar's death.
His successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, dismissed the negotiations, calling them "enemies' propaganda" and intensified attacks against the Kabul government to consolidate his power.
To resume peace talks, the first meeting of the Quadrilateral Coordination Group, comprising Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US, was held in January the following year. A series of discussions were held, without the presence of Taliban representatives, to break the stalemate, but Mansour's death in a US drone strike in May 2016 left the deadlock unbreakable.
With the continuation of the Taliban's hit-and-run approach and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, US President Donald Trump vowed to adopt a more aggressive approach.
But after this, too, proved ineffective, a senior US diplomat and Taliban officials reportedly held talks for the first time in Qatar with no representatives from the Afghan government, which has been urging the Taliban for many years to come to the peace table.
The bilateral negotiation is unlikely to bear the desired result for two reasons: First, the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan has been the main precondition of the Taliban's leadership, which is not acceptable to the White House. Reaching a peace agreement with the US regardless of its troops in Afghanistan is believed to divide the Taliban into factions and the more radical side will regard a peace agreement with the US as a political deal and will stand against it.
Second, the Taliban's volatile stance toward peace talks leaves little hope for positive negotiation. If they come to the table with bona fide intentions, they have to stop their militancy, which is a prerequisite for talks.
The question is, then, what has brought the Taliban to the table?
It is believed that recent campaigns by Islamic clerics against terrorist acts in Afghanistan have put pressure on the Taliban to revise their strategy and have triggered doubt among some fighters about the legitimacy of the war.
Facing such confrontation, the Taliban have said the war is against the invasion and not the Kabul government. But it is understandable that excluding the government and neighboring countries, mainly Pakistan and China, from the process will never lead to peace and stability in Afghanistan.
The author is a columnist for Daily Outlook, an independent newspaper in Afghanistan.
(China Daily 08/03/2018 page11)
