The government of the new Afghan President Dr Ashraf Ghani is in the process of formulating its policy towards Pakistan, but that will take time since the cabinet hasn’t been formed yet and the powers of Chief Executive Officer Dr Abdullah, who like his late leader Ahmad Shah Masood had serious differences with Pakistan in the past, aren’t yet clear.
Though Pakistan in the recent past has made renewed efforts to befriend Abdullah and the non-Pashtun leaders of the erstwhile Northern Alliance, overcoming animosities accumulated over the years won’t be easy. These leaders and other members of the Afghan ruling elite are suspicious of Pakistan’s motives in Afghanistan due to its past and present links with the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network. However, the distrust is mutual as Pakistan’s civil and military rulers also have complaints with regard to the growing sanctuaries of fugitive Pakistani Taliban and Baloch separatists in Afghanistan and the increased Indian presence in the country.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s Pakistan policy hasn’t undergone any real change yet, though Ghani unlike Karzai has refrained from criticising Pakistan. He is hoping to start a new and friendly era of relations with Pakistan with China’s help and this reason, as well as his wish to attract further Chinese investment in Afghanistan, prompted him to undertake his official visit to China after having visited Saudi Arabia earlier to perform Umra in keeping with a promise he had made during his presidential election campaign.
Like the new Afghan government, Pakistan too is in the process of exploring possibilities of heralding a new phase of better relations with Afghanistan. It would like to leave behind the era of unfriendly ties between the two neighbouring Muslim countries during the almost 13 years of Karzai rule. Even in his parting remarks before handing over charge to Ghani, Karzai had spoken about his inability to get cooperation from Islamabad to restore peace in Afghanistan despite undertaking 22 visits to Pakistan. Obviously, he didn’t say that he often conducted diplomacy through the media and unnecessarily provoked Pakistan by sparing no opportunity to criticise it for real or imagined reasons and almost never conceded his own shortcomings.
According to media reports, Ghani is planning to visit Pakistan in the near future, though dates haven’t been fixed yet. There was also speculation in the media that Ghani wanted a result-oriented visit and, therefore, sought assurances of Pakistan’s cooperation before undertaking the trip. However, Ghani unlike Karzai may not adopt such a course so soon after coming into power as he has yet to judge Islamabad’s sincerity. Besides, he has to assure Pakistan that he is willing to keep in mind Pakistan’s sensitivities on the question of his country’s security-related ties with India and also with regard to the presence of Pakistani militants in Afghanistan. The visit to Pakistan would enable him to properly assess Islamabad’s commitment to a peaceful Afghanistan, but putting conditions before coming to Islamabad would hardly serve any purpose.
Ghani has been invited by both India and Pakistan, but it appears he will visit Islamabad first as Pakistan’s role is important in kick-starting the stalemated peace process in Afghanistan. The rivalry between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan was evident recently when their national security advisers visited Kabul one after the other and invited Ghani to visit their respective countries. Sartaj Aziz was the first to reach Kabul and no sooner had he returned to Pakistan that Ajit Doval, the former Indian intelligence chief who is now the national security adviser to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rushed to the Afghan capital.
Army chief General Raheel Sharif also visited Afghanistan and reiterated Pakistan’s offer to train Afghan army officers in Pakistan. Earlier, the then Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani too had made the offer but Karzai had rejected it until the distrust between the two countries was removed. General Raheel Sharif also offered to fully equip a brigade of the Afghan army and provide it weapons. Successive Pakistani prime ministers too had offered to train Afghan army officers in Pakistan and proposed signing a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan, but the reaction from Karzai had always been negative.
Islamabad is worried that the ongoing training of Afghan army officers in India would negatively influence these officers against Pakistan. Afghan officials have been arguing that their officers don’t want to go to Pakistan for training due to the strong anti-Pakistan sentiment in Afghanistan. To this, Pakistani military authorities responded by pointing out that army officers in Pakistan or other countries would be committing an act of indiscipline if they refuse to be sent somewhere for training. It appears that Ghani is noncommittal on this issue and will consider the pros and cons and see how Pakistan responds to his overtures before deciding whether to send Afghan army officers to Pakistan for training.
During his Kabul visit, General Raheel Sharif pointed out that Afghanistan and Pakistan have to jointly fight terrorism. Ghani responded to it by arguing that they have a common enemy and that they will have to jointly fight the enemy. It remains to be seen if they can translate their words into action.
It is a coincidence that the premier intelligence agencies of the two countries are getting new chiefs at this interesting point of time in their often uneasy relationship. The ISI got its new chief, Lt Gen Rizwan Akhtar, on November 8 while the NDS will also be getting a new head in the near future in place of Rahmatullah Nabeel, who was appointed by Karzai. Intelligence agencies are often blamed for destabilising each other’s countries and one would have to see if the change of guard at the top in the ISI and NDS will result in any changes in the context of the Pak-Afghan relations.
Another emerging new dimension in the troubled relationship between Islamabad and Kabul is China’s increased role in region. President Ghani is hoping that China would be able to play a key role in helping to restore peace in Afghanistan through a political process backed by its close ally, Pakistan. China has shown interest in becoming involved in the Afghan peace process. Several months ago it named a special envoy for Afghanistan to focus on the Afghan situation in the post-2014 period following the drawdown of the NATO forces.
China recently hosted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and reportedly the situation in Afghanistan and the Afghan peace process were discussed. Both China and Afghanistan are hoping that Pakistan will manage to persuade the Afghan Taliban to stop fight. It isn’t clear how much Pakistan will be able to influence the Taliban and how the US would react to any such move in Afghanistan that would likely diminish its role.
These are the early days of Ghani’s presidency, but one of his statements during his presidential campaign raised hopes when he argued that there is no alternative to national reconciliation for restoring peace in Afghanistan. To achieve this objective, he will need all the help he can get – including from Pakistan and China.
Courtesy: Rahimullah Yousafzai,
The News