- Consistent, friendly Pak-Afghan interactions
Considering the roller-coaster nature of past Pak-Afghan relations, 2018 has witnessed a welcome newfound political will and consistency in easing strained ties, as also a mutual pledge to remain engaged, however grim the situation. Bitter experience precludes going overboard on this pleasantly surprising, but otherwise logical and realistic, new peace path chosen by the two suffering neighbours, despite stubborn US fixation (now softening) on an absolute military victory. Recent high-level Pak-Afghan meetings are marked by cordiality, a business-like attitude, ring of sincerity and, as well-put by President Ashraf Ghani in his March 19 meeting with Pakistan’s National Security Adviser (NSA), ‘let’s not remain prisoners of the past and let’s secure our future with the aim not to win the war but to end it…’
Perhaps realising that recrimination and blame game were futile and self-defeating, the two neighbours are now ‘seeing eye to eye’, rather than being struck in the ‘eye for an eye’ groove. The Afghan war cannot conclude in an honourable and lasting peace without intense sincere collaboration between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The series of contacts this year is impressive: visit of Afghan interior minister and NDS (intelligence) chief on January 31, Pakistan foreign secretary’s Kabul visit on February 3, and talks on a joint action plan on bilateral issues, the Afghan–Pakistan Plan for Peace and Solidarity, reciprocal visit of Afghan delegation on February 9, visit of Pakistan National Security Adviser (NSA) to Kabul last Saturday and meetings with President Karzai and Afghan chief executive, with an invitation to Prime Minister Khaqan Abbasi, and on Wednesday, meetings of Afghan ambassador with the Pakistani PM and NSA. The key words in these exchanges were, protecting and advancing relationship, shared interests, shared future, reconciliation under Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process, meaningful and constructive engagement, mutually beneficial cooperation, and deepening connectivity through regional projects. As wartime PM Winston Churchill remarked on a rare British victory in the initial stages of World War II, ‘Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning’, when the tide of war begins to turn.
