After days of tense and strained relations, Pakistan and the United States are finally back on the track to improve their bilateral ties and the Thursday’s visit of US Special Envoy Marc Grossman to Islamabad went a long way in cooling down the temperatures, with both sides agreeing on the need of holding talks with all Taliban factions including the Haqqanis.
Apart from consensus on what to do in tackling the Taliban insurgency, Islamabad and Washington also decided on Thursday to iron out differences on bilateral issues such as future deployment of US military advisors and CIA personnel in Pakistan, drone strikes, suspension of military aid by Obama administration and other conflicting matters.
Pakistan has extended conditional assurance to the US on Islamabad’s mediatory role in any future talks between US and the Haqqani network. Pakistan demanded that that its concerns vis-à-vis any Indian role in Afghanistan must be allayed. But Grossman, in his meetings with Pakistan’s civilian and military leaders, expressed his inability to give any assurance in that regard and only said that he would convey Pakistan’s message to the policymakers in Washington.
Nonetheless, the diplomatic circles say that the same issue too was likely to be resolved as the top policymakers in US had fully realised that without Pakistan, the objective of durable peace and stability in Afghanistan just could not be achieved.
In order to hold talks on all the contentious issues, a high-level US delegation is expected in the next few days in Islamabad which would comprise both civilian and military officials.
The US officials will meet their counterparts in Islamabad and try to revive the bilateral cooperation to the optimum level.
One formula, which was discussed in Grossman’s Thursday meetings in Islamabad, was to continue with the cooperation against the menace of terrorism and bilateral efforts to improve ties.
A Pakistani diplomat, seeking anonymity, said that in fact the formula, to some extent, was already being practiced by the two sides with Islamabad cooperating with US against the al-Qaeda but differences arose on the question as to how to deal with the Taliban and especially the Haqqanis.
He, however, said that those were just temporary measures and that some sort of permanent solutions were still needed to be found.
In order to give impetus to the reconciliatory efforts and especially the US willingness for peace talks with the Haqqani network, CIA Chief General David Petraeus may also visit Islamabad soon. Meanwhile, some other senior official too could come to Islamabad for talks with Pakistani officials but that all is being sorted out between the policymakers in the two capitals.
As for Pakistan’s concerns over India’s growing influence in Afghanistan, Obama administration will accelerate its efforts as a mediator between Islamabad and New Delhi facilitating them to iron out their differences on Kashmir and other bilateral issues and pace up the ongoing peace process that has been marred by ‘sluggishness’ for months now.
Apart from that, Kabul can also be given a sound advice by the US administration to give due importance to Pakistan vis-à-vis its ties with India.
Though India has made huge investments so far in Afghanistan and its stakes are very high there but still the Obama administration is expected to see the Indians backing off a little in the war-torn country and refrain from creating troubles for Pakistan.
However, all this bonhomie between the South Asian nuclear neighbours hinges on the successful reconciliatory talks between Islamabad and Washington, which will commence in near future.
