Friday, July 3, 2015

Afghanistan-Pakistan Emerging Relations: An Opportunity Or A Threat

Since the launch of the summer offensive ‘Azam’ by insurgent groups, Afghanistan has gone through one of its most challenging periods of the last 14 years. Afghanistan national security forces have witnessed huge number of casualties. Insurgency in North of Afghanistan and the fallout of districts in Kunduz, Badakhshan and Nuristan echoes the unpreparedness of Afghan forces to fight without international forces air-support. Similarly Kabul was lucky not to witness the massacre of its member of parliament, as a group of suicide bomber were unable to reach their desires, otherwise, the intrusion would have cost the National Unity Government (NUG) a huge price.
Besides these insecurities and political uncertainties, the leadership of the NUG still believes that peace negotiations should be prioritiesed. They also have been adamant that the Memorendum of Understanging (MoU) between the intelligence organisations of Afghanistan and Pakistan has not yet been inked while copies of the signed MoU are circulating in the social media websites.
As the leadership of the NUG is tilting and flexing their foreign policy towards Pakistan in hope of peace and security that could be attained with their support. However, there are groups of ‘opposition’ to the approach taken by President Ghani and his team. Amongst them is the former President Hamed Karzai, who has remained politically active, despite stepping down last year.
The former President has recently held informal talks with the major stakeholders in India, China and Russia. Amongst these meeting two are of core importance a meeting he held with Prime Minister of India Narender Singh Modi and the Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has informed both of them about the challenges that Afghanistan is facing with the transitioning of power to Afghan forces, while also voicing his concerns about policies of the NUG. In his visit meeting with President Putin, he reiterated that “We have entered a new sort of relationship with Russia,” he further added, “And that relationship is now blossoming.”
The question with Afghans is that whether the growing insecurities, political uncertainties, and unemployment were the things that they were expecting from the NUG. It has almost been now 10 months, and the NUG has not delivered on any of the promises that the leadership of NUG promised to the people of Afghanistan.
The people of Afghanistan do understand that the core to all the above stated issues is insecurity, but how far more will the people of Afghanistan have to suffer. President Ashraf Ghani has offered Pakistan exceptional opportunity to work out peace for them. We don’t think this opportunity will come again, as failure to Ghani’s will dishearten other Afghan leaders to make such an offer to its western neighbors. We do understand that Pakistan wants Afghanistan that its territory and institutions should not be used against its national interest but Afghans would expect the same.
However we do understand that the movement of Taliban is not now only confined to support from Pakistan, as there are other regional and international miscreants that have provided them funding and logistics over the years to ensure that Afghanistan remains a mayhem to regional counties. We would therefore ask for a more comprehensive approach from neighboring countries including China, India, Russia and Saudi to think out of box, about durable peace in Afghanistan, otherwise the continuity of the insecurity would have direct and indirect impact on these counties.
http://www.eurasiareview.com/02072015-afghanistan-pakistan-emerging-relations-an-opportunity-or-a-threat/

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