(MENAFN- Daily Outlook Afghanistan) Recently thePakistani Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said that Pakistan is readyto help Afghanistan in post-settlement reconstruction and development. Heassured that Pakistan would remain committed to durable peace and stability inAfghanistan, terming it a pre-requisite for development and prosperity of theregion. He also promised to reopen its airspace for Afghanistan-India flightsin next few days. According to Afghanistan Civil Aviation Authority, Pakistanwill reopen its airspace for flights on June 14. It is hoped that thiscooperation leads to deeper cooperation and bilaterally find the lost key ofpeace in Afghanistan.
Thus, both countrieshave showed some flexibility and started some newly political communication;The meeting of the president Ghani with Imran Khan in the margin of the Islamiccountries' summit in Saudi Arabia, the trip of the national security adviser toPakistan, the Sind evaluation meeting of the two countries and the recentAction Plan for Peace and Solidarity in Islamabad and finally the impendingtravel of the President to Pakistan are some example for this improvement whichalso caused some optimism.
This skeptic improvementcomes after several years of tension between the two countries with imploringTaliban to stop destructive war in the country. Undoubtedly, the issue ofending war and reaching peace in Afghanistan has been one of the main agendathat pursued by the government. As being one of the top priorities, it devoureda lot of fiscal and non-fiscal facilities from the already suffering peopleAfghanistan. With attempting to start peace negotiation with Taliban, many ofthe political and economic opportunities have been wasted while no positiveoutcome has produced yet. The very recent examples for this failure were theQatar and Moscow meetings that the delegations of Afghanistan have not receivedanything other than humiliation and disgrace. Reversely, it createdopportunities for Taliban to promote their political position and prestige ininternational arena.
Although everybodyknows that war and peace in Afghanistan are managed from the outside, yet weare expecting peace and meaningful talks from the Taliban which seemsparadoxical and more like a puzzle. If we believe that the Taliban is a groupcreated by foreign countries, if we believe that the formation of Taliban groupis a political project for political purposes, if we know that the Taliban arenot independent in their policies and attitudes, then why do we waste a lot ofresources in attempting talks with Taliban? Why the Taliban is always awardedone-sided advantage or awards while running a proxy war in the country.
Today's question'Where is the key to peace? has become a kind of metaphor that Afghan citizensuse it in different ways. The Former President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai,had said that the key to peace in Afghanistan is in the hand of US andPakistan. A number of other politicians believe that this key is only inIslamabad and Rawalpindi of Pakistan but Once Khalilzad had said that the keyto peace is in Kabul. In recent years, some of analysts refer it to the capitalof some Arab countries or Moscow. Our current problem is that we have lost thekey to peace and we do not know where to look for it. So, if we find the rightaddress of key to peace, we would be able to solve the unresolved puzzle whichis emanating from same point.
This unresolvedpuzzle has also affected our diplomacy with foreign countries. If today ourforeign policy does not have enough rationality and stability, this originatesfrom unstable and shaky political bases. We do not know where the key of peaceis; sometimes we are seeking in America, sometimes we give our hearts to theArab countries, and sometimes we give concession to Pakistan, and sometimes begfrom Russia. In fact, the ship of our peace effort is drifting over an oceanwithout knowing the real destination.
Unfortunately, due tounsustainable and irrational political policies, the situation in Afghanistanhas become so complicated and intertwined with multiple issues that we canhardly identify a single country as a factor in creating, intensifying andcontinuing the war in Afghanistan.For example, the role that the United Statesand Pakistan have had over the past years in Afghanistan, do not have now. Theemergence of other countries in the field of competition and the extent oftheir role and influence in the intensification and continuation of war and peacehas changed the judgments and perceptions of the past.
As a result, the USgovernment though seems more flexible and may have retreated from some of itspositions had in the past but cannot convince Taliban to end war inAfghanistan. The Taliban has not accepted even a single day of ceasefire whilerequested by the whole nation and neither agreed to sit in peace table withlegitimate government of Afghanistan. Today, the Taliban group is not dependent to a single country; rather,it has established its relations with various countries and receives financialassistance and weapons from many countries.
In the past, Pakistanwas blamed as a father of Taliban but today, due to addition of multiplesupporters to Taliban, Pakistan may not have the previous influence over theTaliban group. However, the role of Pakistan in establishing peace inAfghanistan is undeniable provided that Pakistan desists from its dual policiesand honestly pursues its interests in Afghanistan's peace and development.Thus, Afghanistan should also manage its relation with Pakistan on the basis ofinternational norms and standard, and sensibly respond to Pakistan's legitimateconcerns and demand. This seems to be the real point that the two countries cancooperate on peace issue in Afghanistan.
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