Recognising Pakistan’s cooperative role towards pushing Afghan reconciliation process, a top Washington envoy has dismissed the impression that Islamabad would hijack the peace process in Kabul to secure its own interests.
Appearing before the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Ambassador James Dobbins said, “Pakistan has become more cooperative and more helpful on the issue of (Afghan) reconciliation.”
Responding to Senator Menendez’s suggestion that Pakistan may be cooperating with an intention of hijacking the Afghan reconciliation process, Ambassador Dobbins said, “I think that they obviously would like to influence the process. That is to be assumed in any case. But I don’t think there is much likelihood that they would hijack it.”
Neither the United States, nor the Afghan government, Dobbins elaborated, have any intention of allowing that to occur.
“And in any case our objective in these negotiations is not ourselves to negotiate peace in Afghanistan but to initiate an intra-Afghan process.”
The special representative told Senator Menendez that his concerns about Pakistan are understandable.
“There are concerns that we have and discuss internally all the time. There are concerns that we address with the government of Pakistan.”
Dobbins indicated that the US sees a greater opportunity to work with the new government in Islamabad.
“We do see an opportunity with the new civilian government with a clear mandate and majority in Parliament,” he said, when Democratic Senator and chairman Robert Menendez sought the administration’s assessment on where the two countries stood on working together with regard to Afghanistan.
Islamabad, Dobbins said, is grappling with its own internal security problem, “which is in some ways more acute than that of Afghanistan,” Dobbins said, explaining that Pakistan has recently been experiencing higher number of civilian casualties than Afghanistan.
“They (Pakistanis) are also conducting very significant military operations against militants, unfortunately not against militants that are operating in Afghanistan but against the militants that are operating in Pakistan. But they do have a substantive proportion of their military that is now committed to counterinsurgency operations in these border areas (with Afghanistan).”
“This is a continued area of dialogue between the United States and Pakistan,” he added.
Focusing on bilateral relationship, Dobbins said he was hopeful that Secretary of State John Kerry would be able to visit Pakistan “sometime soon”.
“I have been there twice in the first three weeks in the office and address many of these issues,” he said.
Dobbins also made the case that the insurgents operating in Afghanistan enjoy close links with those operating in Pakistan.
“The insurgency has effective sanctuary and draws strength from that sanctuary in their operations in Afghanistan,” he claimed.
“We also recognise that the terrorist and insurgent groups within Pakistan operating against Pakistan, are closely linked to those operating in Afghanistan, and we keep stressing to the government of Afghanistan that they cannot distinguish between benign insurgents and benign militants and malign militants that to the extent militancy grows in their country to whomever it may be directed it is in the end going to destabilize their country as well as that of their neighbours. And I think that recognition is beginning to synch in.”
Concerning future US engagement in Afghanistan, Dobbins said President Barack Obama is still mulling a range of options for the size of the American military presence in the landlocked country beyond r 2014 drawdown.
However, he reiterated Washington’s commitment to help Afghanistan, saying that the Afghans build up their country, they won’t stand alone.
