Pleasant one for once?
It is strange, to say the least, that the Afghan Taliban just followed the success of this Spring Offensive – one that just all but broke the QCG (quadrilateral coordination group) – with a call for direct talks with Kabul. What caused the Mullah Mansour faction to be suddenly comfortable with the talks – after earlier caving in to field commanders’ demands in favour of another Offensive – has yet to make it to the press. But going by what has seen the light of day, given a few pre-conditions – like prisoner release, of course – the Qatar faction, at least, is fine with the talks.
Yet, strangely, even if this story is a hundred percent true, it hardly makes for quantifiable near-term progress. For one thing, does this mean Kabul will back down from its recent position (that Pakistan take action against their Taliban on our soil)? For, if we had, at least this signal for talks would not have appeared. And the same is true for Washington. Will Congress deny that the Taliban’s outreach, however limited, would not have been possible without Pakistan acting as the intermediary? Or will there simply be more of Haqqanis, Afridi, ‘do more’, etc?
The Taliban originally denied that they came here to talk about the talks, but now it’s become apparent that not only did they talk extensively about the talks, but the Chinese, interestingly, were also present. Beijing, it turns out, was quite active these past few days as the Quadrilateral went into a tailspin. And surely they’ve played no small part in making the Taliban realise how short-lived any gains they can achieve will be. Of course there are many, many more hurdles to overcome. But this much was necessary. But whether or not this was really a pleasant surprise will only become clear in the coming days and weeks. Kabul should tone down its rhetoric towards Pakistan, Washington should play the enabler’s role – like China – and the so-called allies should realise that if the militia is now dictating tactics, it is only because their own disunity allowed it to.