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NEW YORK // Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have gone into a tailspin after confirmation of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar stalled Kabul’s talks with the extremist organisation.
Ties between Islamabad and Kabul thawed considerably this year as their common interest in averting all-out civil war in Afghanistan created unprecedented momentum for reconciliation talks with the Taliban.
However, the announcement of Omar's death last month and a spike in violence as his successor Mullah Akhtar Mansour tried to consolidate control of the fracturing movement, have raised the possibility that the last chance for peace could be lost.
Since his election a year ago, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani had sought to strengthen his country’s relationship with Pakistan – which were hostile under his predecessor Hamid Karzai. Mr Ghani has reassured Pakistan’s leaders that their interests would be factored into Afghan policy and that he sought increased cooperation.
In exchange, he hoped Pakistan would pressure the Taliban’s shura councils – which are based in the Pakistani cities of Quetta, Karachi and Peshawar, and the North Waziristan region – to engage in talks with Kabul.
Islamabad’s role
Pakistan had tacitly and directly facilitated factions of the Taliban as a means of wielding influence in Afghanistan, particularly during Mr Karzai’s tenure. But Mr Ghani’s election and the significant political risk he took in pursuing rapprochement with Islamabad has helped change the thinking in Pakistan. Most important to this shift was Islamabad’s decision to launch countrywide operations against anti-state militancy after the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) slaughtered nearly 150 schoolchildren in Peshawar last December.
A return to an expanded, multi-front civil war in Afghanistan like that in the 1990s would be disastrous for Pakistan’s counter-terrorism efforts.
The TTP, whose leadership is based in Afghanistan and has been aided by Afghan intelligence, would have even more territory to operate from, groups could spill across the border, opportunities would open for ISIL among Taliban splinter factions.
Pakistan’s economic development could also be badly undermined as the US$46 billion (Dh169bn) China-funded economic corridor plan that would link the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar with western China hinges on Islamabad’s ability to reduce militant violence.
“Pakistan recognised that they had to be invested in stability, which is fundamentally political stability [in Afghanistan]”, Dan Feldman, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said last month. “We have seen quite significant movement here from the Pakistani government with regard to the Taliban” and pushing for talks.
Division over talks
This year, increasingly high-level Afghanistan-Taliban meetings in China and Norway culminated in talks in the Pakistani town of Murree on July 7 that were sanctioned by Mullah Mansour, at that time deputy to Omar.
The talks were not sanctioned by all the Taliban factions, some of whom felt that this year’s summer fighting season had been successful and that with the imminent drawdown of Nato forces, “why break our fast 10 minutes before iftar”, according to Moeed Yusuf, director of South Asia programmes at the US Institute for Peace think tank.
While the Doha-based Taliban political office did not support the talks because it opposed Pakistan's key role, Mullah Mansour and some in the powerful Haqqani militant network supported them. The Murree talks were intended "to create enough momentum, so that those in Qatar and elsewhere jump in", a Kabul-based western diplomat who know why the US supports the talks, told Borhan Osman, a researcher with the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
The second round of talks in Murree was scheduled for late July, and a key demand by Pakistani and Afghan negotiators was to be that Mullah Mansour prove he had control of field commanders in Afghanistan by de-escalating Taliban violence before the next meeting.
Omar’s death
However, news broke before the talks that Omar – who had not been seen in public since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 – had died two years earlier in Pakistan. The Taliban confirmed his death, and the talks were put on hold indefinitely.
Since then a power struggle has broken out between Mullah Mansour and one of Omar’s sons. There are fears that disgruntled fighters may switch allegiance to ISIL, whose small but growing presence in the region is of increasing concern to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as Washington.
On Sunday, US national security adviser Susan Rice met with Pakistan’s leaders in Islamabad in a bid to revive peace talks.
With little to show for his outreach to Pakistan, and criticism growing, Mr Ghani has begun blaming Islamabad for the violence.
Despite this, an Afghan delegation visited Islamabad in August to press Pakistan to do more to stop militants moving into Afghanistan. The meetings reportedly did not go well.
Pakistan resisted calls to arrest Haqqani and other Taliban leaders, likely because it does not want to create new enemies or lose its influence, according to James Dobbins, who until July 2014 was the US president Barack Obama’s special envoy to the region.
Mr Ghani’s public rhetoric was aimed primarily at his many political rivals in the unity government in Kabul, he said.
“Ghani was politically exposed, particularly after the latest attacks ... and so felt he had to respond,” said Mr Dobbins.
International pressure
Regional powers have also increased pressure on Pakistan.
China has pushed its close ally to clear militant havens in the tribal areas, which also harbour Chinese separatists, and US defence officials have threatened to withhold the next tranche of US$300 million (Dh1.1 billion) worth of military aid if Pakistan does not do more to crack down on the Haqqanis.
Observers say the upsurge in violence in Kabul is due to Mullah Mansour attempting to show his leadership credentials to sceptical hardliners and prevent defection. The Taliban on Monday published a biography of Mullah Mansoor – a move critics who support Omar’s son say show he is “desperate” for power “and using every tactic to increase his popularity”.
Regardless, Afghanistan-Pakistan relations are at their worst point since Mr Ghani came to office.
“It’s too bad we’re back to the same old rhetoric,” said Graeme Smith, a Kabul-based researcher for the International Crisis Group. “Because it means that we’re back to square one” in the reconciliation process.
Cooperation only option
Even with the recriminations and the uncertainty over the Taliban’s future, neither Kabul or Islamabad have any other options aside from cooperation.
“Ultimately this is their only real hope of bringing peace to Afghanistan and guarding their own interests,” said Mr Yusuf. “It’s crucial Ghani and Pakistan keep their channels open even if they think the other is up to no good, because that’s the only way they will find their way out.”
Should Pakistan-facilitated talks resume, the Taliban might increase violence to strengthen its negotiating position, and that could burn any remaining political capital Mr Ghani has to pursue dialogue. “If the levels of violence in Afghanistan continue the way they have Ghani’s space is getting squeezed by the day,” Mr Yusuf said.
The threat posed by ISIL could bring the interests of all the parties involved into greater alignment.
The Taliban – already fighting insurgent factions that have joined ISIL – and Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and the US all have an interest in preventing chaos that could lead to ISIL extending its influence in the region.
The US planned to have about 1,000 troops based in Afghanistan for counter-terrorism and training only until 2016, but there may be a rethink in Washington after the collapse of US-trained forces in Iraq when faced with ISIL.
“The consequences of leaving prematurely have been brought home,” Mr Dobbins said.
tkhan@thenational.ae