Pakistan appears to be encouraging a detente with Kabul and Washington, launching a diplomatic offensive to ensure that it remains central to efforts to initiate peace talks with the Taliban. After 2011, a disastrous year for Pakistan's image abroad following the discovery that Osama bin Laden lived for at least five years in a garrison city, Islamabad is now trying to seize back the initiative.
The country has been badly destabilised by the Afghan war. Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants who fled the 2001 US-led invasion crossed into Pakistan, where they regrouped and offshoots launched their own Pakistani insurgency. But how serious is Pakistan about helping to cut a deal in Afghanistan? And if willing, does it have the ability to overcome domestic crises and the legacy of its own association with the Taliban to play an effective role?
"It's a conundrum that's going to take an enormous amount of statesmanship from the politicians, from the military, to resolve," Pakistani author and Afghan expert Ahmed Rashid told a literary festival in Karachi this weekend.
"And I've not seen that kind of statesmanship from the government," he added. Officially, Pakistan says it will do anything required by the Afghan government to support an Afghan-led peace process. Quietly, many people are sceptical that Islamabad is sincere about wanting a power-sharing settlement.
This month, young, glamorous Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar made a fence-mending visit to Kabul. Her charm reportedly helped to soften the impact of a leaked NATO report accusing Pakistan of sponsoring the Taliban. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who faces a contempt of court trial after being charged and pleading not guilty on Monday, has recently returned from Qatar, the host of nascent contacts between the Taliban and the Americans.
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