Summary Taliban groups are under considerable pressure from Pakistan
Dunya News Report (Shahzad Badar)
The members of the Quadrilateral group comprising US, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan are hectically trying to convince the Taliban leaders to join the peace talks now tentatively scheduled for the second week of this month.
The Afghan government has already given a list of ten Taliban leaders it wants to see at the peace talks. Despite feigning ignorance about the talks the Taliban groups are under considerable pressure from Pakistan to show up at the negotiation table next week. According to reports the Taliban would either join the talks or be asked to leave the Pakistani territory.
The Army Chief General Raheel Sharif has put in lots of efforts and assured the Afghan government that Pakistan wants to see peace in Afghanistan. Unlike his predecessor Hamid Karzai, Ashraf Ghani has reciprocated very positively to Islamabad’s sentiments and has moved closer to Pakistan, agreeing to avail Pak army training facilities for his cadets and sharing intelligence prompting his security chief to resign.
The paradigm shift was brought about by General Raheel Sharif when the army decided to target all terrorists in the country and eliminating Taliban sanctuaries as requested by the Afghan president.
The army chief has helped bring back the Afghan government unconditionally into accepting negotiations with the Taliban. General Raheel Sharif’s recent visit to Tajikastan culminated in a meeting with the Afghan president and according to ISPR the old issues of chasing Taliban fleeing into Afghan territory was discussed with the ongoing military operation. The meeting of the two leaders to discuss peace prior to the next round of the quadrilateral meeting is very significant combined with the pressure the foreign policy advisor Sartaj Aziz claimed is being put on the Taliban groups residing in Pakistan.
Pakistan would be pulling strings to ensure that the talks due this March give a positive semblance of a forward movement. The Pakistan government has some influence over the Taliban as the government has been providing them medical care and hosting their families. Aziz has been quoted by the media stating "We have to use these levers and have restricted their movements, restricted their access to hospitals and other facilities, and threatened them that If you don t come forward and talk, we will at least expel you .
The Taliban gaining militarily on the ground would find it difficult to swallow the threat Aziz claims would bring them on the negotiating table. But relentless efforts from all sides have increased the probability of the Taliban groups to participate in the March talks.
Pakistan has changed its policy and it seems that if the Taliban groups don’t agree to talk peace the groups might be asked to leave Pakistan. Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, the Afghan envoy to Pakistan, is optimistic and thinks that the Afghan Taliban are likely to participate in peace negotiations with his government in the near future. "I am confident we will soon be talking to the Taliban and other opposition groups," he told Radio Free Afghanistan. "Soon we will kick off negotiations toward an agreement for peace."
The Taliban would have to accept the new road map for Afghanistan as the Chinese have also taken interest in Afghan affairs to contain the spill over of the Afghan war from radicalizing its Muslim population. The Taliban are reported to have acceded to drop their demand for withdrawal of all foreign troops before they participate in the talks, and settled down to getting a deadline for their withdrawal from Afghan territory.
The Taliban are sticking to their earlier preconditions of recognition of the Taliban s political office in Qatar, the removal of Taliban leaders from a United Nations terrorist blacklist, an end to the killing of Taliban fighters, and the release of Taliban from prisons.
