EDITORIAL: Afghan President Ashraf Ghani intends to present a three-phase peace roadmap to a proposed meeting in Turkey, seeking an agreement with the Taliban on a ceasefire as a preliminary step towards elections. The US has been pushing for the Turkey moot, with UN involvement, in April 2021 as the May 1, 2021 withdrawal deadline agreed in the Doha accord looms. Ashraf Ghani’s plan is seen as a counter to US proposals rejected by Kabul. The three-phase plan envisages drawing up a new legal system for an interim administration to include the Taliban. The “Reaching an Endstate” proposal includes, in the first phase, a consensus on a political settlement accompanied by an internationally monitored ceasefire. The second phase envisages a presidential election, the establishment of a ‘government of peace’ and implementation arrangements for the new political system. The third phase would focus on building a constitutional framework, the reintegration of millions of refugees displaced by the long running war, and development. Reports say President Ashraf Ghani has already shared the plan with foreign capitals. The Turkey conference is expected to take place in about two weeks. However, the path to it is still strewn with obstacles, one of which was expressed by the Afghan government and politicians when they said they would have to agree an agenda with the Taliban before the meeting. Amidst statements by the Biden administration throwing doubt on the US ability to meet the May 1, 2021 withdrawal deadline for ‘tactical’ reasons, the Taliban in March 2021 threatened to resume hostilities against the foreign forces that they had been avoiding attacking since the Doha agreement, focusing their military activities instead on the Afghan government and its security forces. US President Biden has, however, held out the promise that despite any delay, he did not see the US troops being in Afghanistan by next year. The Afghan government’s ‘feeler’ that the Taliban may be willing to extend the May 1, 2021 deadline and not attack the foreign forces if thousands of their prisoners held by the Afghan government were released was shot down summarily by Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem in Qatar, who said no such offer had been made.
The Taliban are so confident they have already proclaimed their ‘victory’. The Doha peace process had a glaring hole at its heart: it was more or less a bilateral agreement between the US and the Taliban and left the fate of the Afghan government hanging in the air, dependent as its survival now was on Kabul arriving at some political compromise with its implacable foes. President Ashraf Ghani and his Afghan government had reasons to feel ‘abandoned’ by Washington, intent as the latter was to end its involvement in what by now was clearly an unwinnable war in return for Taliban guarantees against a repeat of 9/11. What transpired after the Doha accord followed a predictable trajectory. The Afghan government, politicians and civil society kept bleating for the Taliban to agree an agenda for talks that would protect and keep intact the rights gained by hitherto marginalised ethnic and religious groups, women, etc. But the Taliban understandably were not interested in giving away their battlefield gains at the bargaining table. Hence the switch from hoped-for Afghan government-Taliban bilateral talks to multilateral forums such as the impending Turkey meeting. So, given this track record since Doha, is the ‘peace’ process salvageable? President Ashraf Ghani’s three-phase process to incrementally decrease violence and spur on the political process seems eminently reasonable and rational on paper. But with a triumphalist Taliban waiting for the US and foreign forces to leave before they tackle the Afghan government, the foreseeable result is a debacle in favour of the religiously-inspired warriors and the re-imposition of their hardline governance as seen in their previous stint in power. The mere thought is enough to send shivers down the spine of all the anti-Taliban forces in Afghan society. As far as the US is concerned, its current emphasis on an ‘orderly’ withdrawal may save some face for it, but the end result may not turn out very different. If the Taliban do return to power after the withdrawal, the fallout could be very negative for Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021