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Pakistan to try to mend fences with Afghanistan

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Pakistan is sending a top official to the Afghan capital this weekend to try to mend fences with its uneasy neighbor, and hanging in the balance are U.S. efforts to arrange peace talks with the Taliban.

The trip comes roughly two weeks after the Taliban closed their newly opened political office in the Gulf state of Qatar following angry complaints from Afghanistan that the Islamic militant movement had set it up as a virtual rival embassy, with a flag and sign harkening back to the days they ruled the country.

The political office was part of a U.S. plan to launch peace talks with the Taliban to end the protracted war, with American and other NATO combat troops scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of next year. But the talks ended before they could even begin amid the uproar last month.

Pakistan, which had helped persuade Taliban to agree to sit down with the Americans — and possibly with the Afghans after that — now contends that intransigence, suspicion and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s reluctance to invite his political opponents at home to the negotiating table in Qatar is hobbling efforts to start the talks.

“They (Taliban) listen to us. We have some influence but we can’t control them,” Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s special adviser on national security and foreign affairs, told The Associated Press in advance of his trip to Kabul on Saturday.

“But they (Taliban) also say that the High Peace Council is not fully representative,” Aziz said, referring to Karzai’s 80-member negotiating team. “President Karzai should invite other people to join them.”

Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council, told the AP that if the Taliban were making wider representation on the negotiating team a condition to restarting talks, then it “would be worth considering.” But he was suspicious of Pakistan, wanting assurances first that the demand was from the Taliban and not Pakistan.

Rancor and suspicion between Pakistan and Afghanistan run deep. Kabul blames Islamabad for not cracking down on Taliban militants who use the border area as a base to carry out attacks on Afghans and international forces in Afghanistan. For its part, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of sabotaging peace efforts with its provocative statements, overtures to India and refusal to acknowledge the bloody war Islamabad is waging in its border regions.

One …read more

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Freed Afghan Taliban fighters return to insurgency

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At least half the Afghan Taliban recently freed from Pakistani prisons have rejoined the insurgency, a Pakistani intelligence official says, throwing into question the value of such goodwill gestures that the Afghan government requested to restart a flagging peace process.

A senior Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity so he could talk freely confirmed that “some” newly freed Taliban have returned to the battlefield.

The development underscores the difficulties in reaching a political deal with the Taliban before the end of 2014, when NATO and U.S. troops are scheduled to have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many Taliban released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay have also gone underground.

Despite some recent signs from the Taliban that they are willing to share power and want to avoid a civil war, the militants may well be playing for time until 2014. That’s also when the Afghans are scheduled to elect a new president to succeed Hamid Karzai, whom the insurgents consider an American puppet.

The Taliban have long refused to speak directly with Karzai or his government. They have said they will negotiate only with the United States, which has held secret talks with them in the Gulf state of Qatar. But at Karzai’s insistence, the U.S. has since sought to have the insurgents speak directly with the Afghan government. Western officials privately say that the talks have so far gone no further.

At the request of the Afghan High Peace Council late last year, Pakistan freed 24 prisoners to coax a reluctant Taliban leadership to talk peace directly with Karzai’s government, according to Ismail Qasemyar, a senior peace council official.

The freed prisoners are all Afghan Taliban, who are battling NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Many of these fighters use neighboring Pakistan as a home base, particularly in winter months.

The release of the prisoners appears to have backfired, however, with the intelligence official saying about half of them have returned to the Taliban. The outcome is further testing an already troubled relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and drawing U.S. complaints that Pakistan has not done enough to keep track of the freed Taliban.

Frustrated by the criticism, Islamabad said it doesn’t have the resources to track the prisoners and that no request was made to follow the freed Taliban or to hand them over to the Afghan government. Afghan authorities have …read more
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Pakistani clerics to boycott peace conference

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Pakistani clerics upset with anti-Taliban comments coming out of Afghanistan said Monday they will boycott a conference of religious leaders being held to denounce violence and press for a peaceful end to the 11-year-old Afghan war.

The head of the Pakistani clerics, Mufti Abu Huraira Mohiuddin sent a letter to his Afghan counterpart on Sunday announcing the move. In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Mohiuddin accused some Afghan clerics of using “unsavory language” against the Taliban and said the conference was shaping up to be a one-sided attack on the Taliban rather than a conference to press for peace.

The letter appeared to put an end to an initiative that began last November when Kabul and Islamabad announced the plan to hold a peace conference.

The ambitious initiative called for 500 clerics from Afghanistan and Pakistan to gather in Kabul in March to present a united front opposing violence, denouncing suicide bombings and urging all sides in the protracted conflict to pursue peace. At the time, the plan was touted as a sign of improving relations between Kabul and Islamabad. But the latest dispute highlights the difficulty of getting the squabbling neighbors to sit together.

Still, Pakistan is seen as key to any peace agreement with Taliban insurgents ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO and U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and it’s believed that Islamabad is the best hope of getting the Taliban to enter into serious negotiations.

The Taliban were given office space in Persian Gulf state of Qatar last year when the U.S. and Taliban opened secret talks. But those discussions stalled after the U.S. refused to release five Taliban from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yet the Taliban have participated in at least two international conferences and U.S. and European officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the fragility of the talks, say the Taliban are in touch with representatives of 30 to 40 countries. The proliferation of interlocutors has angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai who wants all peace negotiations channeled through his government even though the Taliban are steadfastly refusing to talk to his government.

Some members of the Afghan High Peace Council had hoped that 500 clerics from Afghanistan and Pakistan would have had the clout to propel the Taliban into direct talks with the government.

But the dispute among the clerics began last week …read more
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Taliban peace talks flounder as troops draw down

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The Afghan peace effort is floundering, fraught with mistrust and confusion among key players even though the hard-line Taliban militants show signs of softening and their reclusive, one-eyed leader made a surprise offer to share power in a post-war Afghanistan.

The U.S. and its allies hope the peace process, which began nearly two years ago, will gain traction before most international forces withdraw from the country in fewer than 23 months. But although the Taliban appear more ready to talk than ever before, peace talks remain elusive because of infighting among a rising number of interlocutors — all trying to get some kind of negotiations started.

Members of the Taliban are in contact with representatives from 30 to 40 different countries, according to senior U.S., Afghan and other officials The Associated Press interviewed in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Moreover, the relationship among the key players — the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan — is marked by distrust that keeps tugging momentum away from the peace process.

Many of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the sensitive contacts with the Taliban.

Finding a path to the negotiating table will be a topic when Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Zardari hold a series of meetings beginning Monday with British Prime Minister David Cameron. The meetings in London come amid fresh tensions between Kabul and its western allies.

Karzai recently warned the West not to use peace talks as a lever against his government. As well, both Kabul and Washington are frustrated that Pakistan is not monitoring the whereabouts and activities of Taliban prisoners it released in recent months. Miffed by the criticism, Pakistan says it freed the prisoners at the request of the Afghan government and doesn’t have the resources to keep tabs on them.

No one in either Pakistan or Afghanistan seems to know where the dozens of released prisoners have gone. Last week, the Taliban issued a statement by freed former Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi on behalf of all the prisoners — an indication that at least some might have rejoined the ranks of the insurgency.

“There were no preconditions to their release and we are getting criticism from our own people inside Afghanistan about that and it is valid criticism,” said Ismail Qasemyar, a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council.

The peace council, which Karzai set up to carry out peace negotiations, handed Pakistan the list of prisoners, including Turabi, that it wanted freed. They have also asked for the release of the Taliban’s former second in command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, but Washington has urged Pakistan not to release him, U.S. and Afghan officials said.

For its part, the United States has tried to accelerate the peace process by working with Britain, Norway and Germany to reach out to the Taliban, said a senior Western diplomat familiar with the negotiations. Both France and Tokyo have hosted meetings that have been attended by Afghan officials, opposition leaders and the Taliban, although the Taliban insist their participation should not be misinterpreted as negotiations.

One senior U.S. official said the process is so nascent and egos so fragile that it’s like negotiating a minefield. A European diplomat told the AP that there are so many backdoor talks going on that it’s hard to keep track of who is talking to whom.

This week, Karzai said he wanted an end to all these talks. Speaking at a water management conference in the Afghan capital, Karzai expressed suspicion that the peace process was being hijacked by the West to strengthen his opponents and undermine his government.

Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi, told The AP in an interview on the sprawling palace grounds in Kabul that the president was frustrated by what he perceives are attempts by his political opponents and the West, including the United States, to use the peace process to lay the groundwork for a post-2014 Afghanistan led by those hand-picked by them.

This latest flap between Karzai and the West could halt or at least delay the official opening of a Taliban office in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar. The office is intended to give the Taliban an address from which they can conduct peace talks. Faizi said Karzai supports the office “in principle,” with some conditions.

“This office should be used only as an address for talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban,” Faizi said. “This office should not be used for any other purpose.”

Faizi also said the president wants the Taliban to publicly announce that they will negotiate peace only with the Afghan High Peace Council. So far, the Taliban have resisted, although officials close to the president say privately that they appear to be softening their hard-line stance.

Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, seemed uncompromising when he spoke to The AP.

“There is no change in the policy of the Islamic Emirate of not talking to the Karzai government,” he said “The Karzai regime is powerless and installed by others. Real parties to the conflict are those who have committed aggression.”

But still the Taliban have shown signs of moderating their positions in recent months.

According to several Western officials, who are involved or knowledgeable about the process, the most telling sign of flexibility came in a statement issued late last year by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. In the statement marking the Islamic holy holiday of Eid al-Adha, Omar for the first time offered to share power. He also said he had no interest in starting a civil war.

“As to the future political destiny of the country, I would like to repeat that we are neither thinking of monopolizing power nor intend to spark off domestic war,” he said.

While still firm on his demand for Sharia or Islamic law, in Afghanistan, the Taliban leader, who rarely speaks and has a $10 million bounty on his head, did seem to take a few steps back from the harsh and regressive edicts and interpretations of Islamic law that characterized the Taliban’s five-year rule. Many of those edicts were directed at women, denying them education and the right to work. He also seemed to extend an olive branch to Afghanistan‘s other ethnic groups.

“We will guarantee rights of both male and female of the country, build economic structures and strengthen social foundations and facilities of education for all people of the country,” he said.

But Omar’s flexibility only went so far. He still insisted on an Islamic education system. While the West has been pressing for secular education, many of Afghanistan‘s current leaders support a Quran-based education system.

A senior member of the High Peace Council, who met with Taliban on the sidelines of the two conferences in France and Tokyo, said they also vowed to make child marriages illegal and outlaw a common practice among ethnic Pashtuns to use their daughters as barter to settle disputes.

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Kathy Gannon is AP Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan and can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon

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Pakistan to release more Afghan detainees, official says

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Pakistan plans to release more Afghan militant detainees in an attempt to boost the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan ahead of the departure of international troops next year, a top Pakistani official said.

Foreign Secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani said Pakistan has initiated the process of releasing those Afghan detainees in its custody who they think will help facilitate the reconciliation process. His comments were made during a press conference Friday in Abu Dhabi and relayed by the Foreign Ministry on Saturday. He did not give a timetable.

In general, Kabul has pressed hard for Islamabad to release its detainees, with some officials saying that they hope the released Taliban can serve as intermediaries. But Washington is concerned about specific prisoners who they consider dangerous.

Jilani did not specifically mention whether Pakistan would release Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the former deputy leader of the Afghan Taliban whom Kabul has been pushing Pakistan to release.

Senior U.S. and Afghan officials told The Associated Press that the U.S. has informed the Pakistani authorities that it was reluctant to see Baradar go free and asked for prior notice so it can try to track his movements.

Pakistan has upward of 100 Afghan prisoners in its custody including Baradar, who was arrested by Pakistan in the southern city of Karachi in 2010. The circumstances of his arrest, like that of most of the detainees, remain unclear. Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of providing shelter to some of the Taliban.

The U.S. and Afghan officials said a similar U.S. request for notification upon release has been made for another prisoner, Abdul Samad, according to the officials. Samad, who is from Kandahar, the former Taliban headquarters, is a specialist in making suicide jackets and came to prominence within the Taliban movement after its collapse in 2001.

Several senior Taliban have already been released by Pakistan including former governors and ministers. One of those released was the once-feared Vice and Virtue Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who oversaw a legion of Taliban fighters who roamed the streets searching for women who were not properly covered, or residents listening to music or watching television, both of which were forbidden under the Taliban.

In November Pakistan also released Anwar ul Haq Mujahed, a senior Taliban commander from eastern Nangarhar province whose release was sought by the Afghan High Peace Council although he had been implicated in several major attacks in eastern Afghanistan against coalition and Afghan forces.

The Afghan peace process has made little headway since it began several years ago, hobbled by distrust among the major players, including the United States. But it appears to be getting a new push in recent months with a high-level peace commission traveling from Afghanistan to Pakistan and Pakistani officials releasing 26 Taliban prisoners since November.

Part of the reason for the recent peace push is that Pakistani government and military officials are worried that if American troops leave without a plan in place, Afghanistan could deteriorate into another round of vicious infighting. After the Soviets pulled out in 1989, many of the militants who had helped best that superpower then turned on each other in what played out as a vicious war across the country.

A repeat of that scenario could have horrific consequences for Pakistan, such as a flood of Afghan refugees across its borders and increased fighting in Pakistan‘s tribal areas, where the military is already trying to suppress a stubborn insurgency.

The Afghan and U.S. governments have long accused Islamabad of backing insurgents — an allegation Pakistan denies — and say many militant leaders are hiding in the country.

Whether the recent detainee releases will play a significant role in the peace process remains to be seen. The U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, James Cunningham, said on Thursday that although their release was a positive step, there was no indication of where the former detainees had gone.

He said the Afghan government was trying to ensure they did not return to the insurgency.

He said the Pakistanis so far have taken a “hands-off kind of approach to the people that they have released.”

All officials spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to talk to the media.

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