- It helps with Afghanistan too
According to the joint press statement issued after the visit of the Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Pakistan, China reaffirmed its support to the Kashmir cause by maintaining that the issue should be properly and peacefully resolved based on the UN Charter, relevant UNSC resolutions and bilateral agreements, as well as by rejecting the unilateral action by the Modi government with regard to Indian Occupied Kashmir. It also sent an unambiguous message that China supported Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence and national dignity. The bottom line in regards to the outcome of the visit was that the friendship and partnership between the two countries remained unaffected by any adverse regional and international development and continued to move from strength to strength.
The statement represents an irrefutable reality about the progress of friendly ties between the two countries being unaffected by the vicissitudes of time. China and Pakistan have invariably supported each other’s causes at all the international forums and the former has also played a pivotal role in the economic development of the latter, in addition to strengthening its security apparatus through military assistance. The CPEC. a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative, has imparted eternity to the infallible friendship between the two countries by binding them in a strategic and economic cooperation and as partners in promoting the cause of shared regional prosperity.
The resumption of the dialogue would now mainly depend on demonstration of flexibility by the Taliban in agreeing to a ceasefire before the two parties re-engage and probably their guaranteed commitment not to persist with their strategy to hurt the ego of a superpower and test its patience through acts of terrorism. The Taliban also owe it to the Afghan people to end their sufferings and bring peace to the country. They must not lose the historic opportunity which has come their way to ensure the US exit from Afghanistan and return to normalcy through intra-Afghan dialogue
It is an undeniable reality that both China and Pakistan, besides strengthening their bilateral relations, have also worked relentlessly in promoting regional peace and security, particularly the process of an Afghan-led and Afghan owned solution to the conflict in Afghanistan which is pivotal to the realization of the goal of shared economic prosperity and perennial peace in the region. Both have been making efforts at bilateral and multilateral levels to encourage intra-Afghan dialogue, as well as parleys between the Taliban and the USA. Russia has also been quite proactive in this regard.
The Chinese Foreign Minister was in Pakistan to attend the China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Foreign Ministers’ dialogue. The trilateral forum was established two years ago, and the earlier meetings were held in Beijing in 2017 and Kabul in 2018. The meeting agreed on enhancing counter-terrorism cooperation among each other and condemned the recent terrorist attacks in Kabul, Kunduz and Farah besides continuing their joint efforts for building political mutual trust and supporting reconciliation, regional peace and stability, development cooperation and connectivity, and security cooperation as key areas of trilateral cooperation. The forum, taking stock of talks between the USA and the Taliban, also reiterated its support for a politically negotiated settlement of the conflict in Afghanistan and expressed hope that intra-Afghan negotiations including direction talks between Kabul and the Taliban would begin soon.
The establishment of the forum and the progress made with regard to countering terrorism and promoting intra-Afghan dialogue amply reflects the sincerity of the three countries in ending the decades old conflict in Afghanistan which had adversely affected the entire region, more so Pakistan. It also corroborated the return to the cooperative mode between Pakistan and Afghanistan by ending the blame game which had marred the relations between the two countries in the past as well as the acknowledgement by the former of the fact that the latter was sincere in its efforts to promote the process of reconciliation in Afghanistan.
The meeting was a good augury in the backdrop of the reports that Taliban and the USA had almost reached an agreement to end the conflict and possibly paving the way for an intra-Afghan dialogue that would decide on the future political structure of Afghanistan and cooperation between all the stakeholders to make it a success. But unfortunately the process has suddenly been disrupted by an announcement by US President Donald Trump to end the dialogue with Taliban whom he accused as unworthy partners in the negotiations in the backdrop of an attack in Kabul in which one US soldier and 11 others were killed while the USA was negotiating the deal with Taliban. The development has, at least for now, scuttled all efforts and energy that has gone into bringing the USA and Taliban together. Pakistan, which has been instrumental in facilitating the dialogue, would genuinely feel dismayed over the development.
The Foreign Office, reacting to the situation, has urged all parties to re-engage to find a negotiated peace from the ongoing political settlement process as it looks for optimized engagement following the earliest resumption of talks. The statement observed that Pakistan has been facilitating the peace and reconciliation process in good faith and as a shared responsibility, and was encouraging all sides to remain engaged with sincerity and patience.
It goes without saying that Pakistan has the biggest stake in peace in Afghanistan and an end to terrorism. It has been making sincere efforts to facilitate an Afghan-led and Afghan owned settlement in that war-ravaged country. Its principled stand on the issue, repudiation of the new policy on Afghanistan and South Asia announced by President Trump and continued efforts for reconciliation, finally produced positive results when President Trump agreed to hold negotiations with the Taliban, with Pakistan playing a facilitating role.
How long it will take to put the negotiations back on track cannot be predicted at this moment but it remains an irrefutable reality that there is no other way to resolve this conundrum than re-engagement as rightly reiterated by Pakistan. In my view the Taliban are mostly responsible for this new stalemate because of their stubbornness and improvidence in stretching the limits of the patience of a superpower. The USA, and even all the regional countries who have been working towards finding an amicable solution to the strife in Afghanistan, were rightly unanimous on the point that the Taliban must agree to ceasefire for creating a congenial atmosphere for the success of dialogue. However the Taliban did not listen to any of the interlocutors and continued with their ill-conceived strategy of strengthening their position through acts of terrorism while it was also engaged in dialogue with the USA.
The resumption of the dialogue would now mainly depend on demonstration of flexibility by the Taliban in agreeing to a ceasefire before the two parties re-engage and probably their guaranteed commitment not to persist with their strategy to hurt the ego of a superpower and test its patience through acts of terrorism. The Taliban also owe it to the Afghan people to end their sufferings and bring peace to the country. They must not lose the historic opportunity which has come their way to ensure the US exit from Afghanistan and return to normalcy through intra-Afghan dialogue.
