EDITORIAL: After months of toing and froing or constant travel back and forth the intra-Afghan peace dialogue has finally forged ahead. On Wednesday, Afghan government and Taliban representatives meeting in Doha reached an agreement on the way forward. All stakeholders have welcomed the development with a sense of relief. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo congratulated the two sides on "perseverance and willingness to find a common ground." UN envoy for Afghanistan Deborah Lyons said "this breakthrough should be a springboard to reach the peace wanted by all Afghans." Pakistan, having played the key role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table hailed the agreement as "an important development contributing towards a successful outcome of intra-Afghan negotiations, which we all hope for."
Tempting as it is to see the development as a significant achievement it is merely a step towards more talks about talks. The three-page agreement the two sides signed only lays out rules and procedures to prepare the draft topics for the agenda of peace negotiations. The most urgent demand of the Kabul government and all others involved, of course, is a comprehensive ceasefire, rejected by the Taliban in the preliminary talks. They had stopped targeting foreign troops following the February deal with the US but attacks on Afghan forces have gone on unabated. Just last Sunday, 31 Afghan soldiers were killed and 24 others wounded in a suicide car bombing in the province of Ghazni. Countless civilians have lost their lives in this endless conflict. Most of all, the war-devastated people of that country need a respite. The Taliban surely are fatigued, too. They may agree to a ceasefire but are likely to employ delaying tactics to drag on the talks till the US withdraws maximum number of troops so the government is in a more weaker position to negotiate the country's political future. Having gained influence, if not control, over much of Afghanistan and knowing that US President Donald Trump wants to end his county's longest war in a hurry, the Taliban could make a political settlement which is acceptable to all that much more difficult.
If President Trump has any positive achievement to his credit, it is to end America's destructive 'forever' wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. His decision, however, to hasten withdrawal from Afghanistan, reducing troop presence from around 4,500 to 2,500 by January is unwise. It has not gone down well with the US' own partners. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned last month that "the price for leaving too soon or in an uncoordinated way could be very high." His worry was that Afghanistan would become, once again, a platform for international terrorists. That may or may not be a valid concern. But there clearly is a danger of Afghanistan returning to the chaos created by US' first (proxy) war in Afghanistan against the erstwhile Soviet Union. Upon the achievement of its objective the US had just got up and departed, leaving the Afghans to fight a bloody civil war and the country becoming a staging ground for international terrorists. Foreign forces need to exit from that unfortunate land, but in a responsible and orderly fashion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020