Pak jockeying for influence in Afghanistan post US withdrawal dangerous for region

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Lahore, Mar. 22 (ANI): The exit of US troops from Afghanistan without a functioning democratic set-up in place, and Pakistan constantly vying for influence in the war-torn country, has all the ingredients of a recipe for disaster, the Daily Times opines.

The Bush administration’s 2003 strategy was “good for invasion and occupation, but reconstruction, rehabilitation and development of a war-ravaged society needs much more than the highly sophisticated war machinery,” the paper points out.

However, the Obama administration is hoping to compel the Taliban to come to the negotiating table after weakening them through a surge in troops and aggressive offensives in areas under their control.

It is not clear whether this strategy will succeed, the editorial points out.

What is clear, however, is that all parties involved in have changed their attitudes towards the Taliban, it says.

Even before the US announced the surge in troops, the Karzai government opened negotiations with the Taliban through Saudi mediation and offered them incentives on the condition that they renounce militancy, cut off ties with al Qaeda and accept the Afghan constitution.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to reinsert itself in the scheme of things, Pakistan started arresting top Taliban leaders who were going to play a major role in the Afghan Govt.-Taliban negotiation, it adds.

Former UN envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, had said that the arrest of these leaders has “halted” the secret talks being led by the Afghan government through the UN.

“Given the critical situation, this jockeying for influence in Afghanistan is very dangerous for the entire region. Therefore, it is imperative for all parties involved to step back, take a deep breath, and come to a semblance of sanity for the sake of peace in Afghanistan and the entire region,” the editorial concludes. (ANI)

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Taliban arrests a ‘setback’ to peace process

March 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The former head of the UN’s mission to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, has criticised Pakistan for arresting senior members of the Taliban.

The conflict in Afghanistan is now in its ninth year and the Taliban’s influence is still strong.

The United States is currently mounting a massive military campaign to reduce the Taliban’s power, but the UN and some other Western nations believe peace talks are the only way to end the fighting.

During the northern spring last year, the UN opened up secret channels of communication with the Taliban.

That communication ended with the arrest in Pakistan of their go-between, the Taliban’s number two Mullah Baradar, just weeks ago.

That was followed by the arrests of up to a further 14 prominent members of the Taliban.

The collapse of peace talks prompted Kai Eide to speak out for the first time since stepping down as the UN’s special representative earlier this month.

“The Pakistanis did not play the role that they should have played,” he said.

“They must have known about this. I don’t believe that these people were arrested by coincidence.

“They must have known who they were, what kind of role they were playing, and you see the result of that.”

Progress being made

The peace talks may have ended, but Mr Eide is adamant they were making progress on politics and humanitarian issues.

“We had progress on this,” he said, “such progress that on the 29th of September I found it right in the Security Council to also express gratitude to those in the Taliban movement who had helped us provide access to areas that has been closed to us.

“That was a rather extraordinary thing to do … and to my biggest surprise it was not noticed by many, but I do believe that it was noticed by the leadership of the Taliban movement.”

But Pakistan has rejected Mr Eide’s claims.

Overnight, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said the fact that Mullah Baradar’s arrest was a joint operation with the US had nothing to do with talks or reconciliation.

‘Game-changer’

Just this week the man overseeing the NATO-led military operation in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, called Baradar’s arrest a game-changer.

He said it “seems to have shaken the confidence of some of the Afghan Taliban leadership”.

Mr Eide was asked by the BBC’s Lyse Doucet about the American position about not engaging in peace talks with the Taliban.

“I believe on the contrary that talks are long overdue and had we really engaged in them some time ago then we could have come further than we are today,” he said.

“I do believe that what has happened over the last couple of months probably represents the setback in the possibility of getting this kind of political process going, but I hope not.

“But I do believe we have experienced a setback over the last few weeks.”

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Pak rejects ex-UN official’s remarks over Taliban peace talks being ‘blocked’

March 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Islamabad, Mar.20 (ANI): Pakistan has rejected former UN envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide’s remarks that the arrest of some top Taliban commanders in the country has blocked the reconciliation process with the extremists.

“The fact of the matter is that Mullah Baradar’s arrest was a joint operation with the US and had nothing to do with talks or reconciliation,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said.

Responding to the top UN official’s statement, Basit said Pakistan itself has been calling for talks with the Taliban and Eide’s remarks were a ‘misinterpretation’ of Islamabad’s aims.

“Pakistan is committed to support an Afghanistan-led reintegration and reconciliation process. So, any other contentions, we believe, are a misrepresentation and misinterpretation of our intentions,” he added.

Earlier, admitting that there were secret negotiations going on with the Afghan Taliban, Eide had criticised Pakistan for the arrests of high-profile Taliban leaders, including the second-in command Mullah Ghani Baradar, which he said has ‘completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.’

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has also questioned the basis of Eide’s statement.

“I do not understand why has he given such a statement?” Qureshi said.

He reiterated that the arrest of Barader, who is considered second only to the Taliban chief Mullah Omar, was part of a joint operation between Pakistani and US forces, adding: “Islamabad has always backed reconciliation process in Afghanistan.” (ANI)

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Arrests of Taliban leaders by Pak blocked ‘secret’ talks with Taliban: UN official

March 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, Mar.19 (ANI): A top United Nations (UN) official has blamed Pakistan of blocking reconciliation efforts with the Taliban by arresting several top extremist commanders.

Admitting that there were secret negotiations going on with the Afghan Taliban, former UN envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide criticised Pakistan for the arrests of high-profile Taliban leaders, including the second-in command Mullah Ghani Baradar, which he said has ‘completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.’

Eide said the UN was involved in face-to-face talks with the Taliban leaders to establish and stability in the region.

“The effect of [the arrests], in total, certainly, was negative on our possibilities to continue the political process that we saw as so necessary at that particular juncture.The Pakistanis did not play the role that they should have played…. They must have known who they were, what kind of role they were playing, and you see the result today,” BBC quoted Eide, as saying.

He said the secret deliberations were started a year ago and several rounds of talks were held until recently.

“The first contact was probably last spring, then of course you moved into the election process where there was a lull in activity, and then communication picked up when the election process was over, and it continued to pick up until a certain moment a few weeks ago,” Eide said.

When asked that whether the talks also involved the Taliban chief Mullah Omar, Eide said : “I find it unthinkable that such contact would take place without his knowledge and also without his acceptance.”

“We met senior figures in the Taliban leadership and we also met people who have the authority of the Quetta Shura to engage in that kind of discussion,” he added.

Eide’s revelation confirms that certain factions within the Taliban are ready for reconciliation, but the UN official cautioned that it would take months or even longer to bridge the trust deficit on both sides in order to move forward. (ANI)

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U.N. set for more discreet talks with Taliban: envoys

March 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

(Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggested in a new report on Afghanistan that the United Nations is ready to continue informal talks with the Taliban but the contact must be discreet, diplomats said.

World

The 15-nation U.N. Security Council will discuss Ban’s report on Thursday and vote next week on his recommendation to renew the mandate of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for another 12 months.

Ban said UNAMA’s mandate “allows it to provide good offices to support the implementation of Afghan-led reconciliation programs” with which President Hamid Karzai is trying to reach out and offer an amnesty to Taliban insurgents.

“It (UNAMA) can also lend its good offices … to these efforts based on the consent of the parties concerned, although the nature of the task could initially require discretion and flexibility,” said the report, obtained by Reuters on Monday.

Several U.N. diplomats said this language amounted to a request for a green light from the council for UNAMA officials to continue informal talks with the Taliban, as long as the contact supported the efforts of the Afghan government.

They said the requirement for “discretion and flexibility” meant that information might be kept confidential and left out of formal U.N. briefings.

“It’s a request for an explicit implicit wink from the council” to allow secret political talks with the Taliban to continue, one U.N. diplomat said.

The issue of speaking with the Taliban is a sensitive one, since the group has been subject to U.N. sanctions since 1999.

But diplomats said the former U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, had been repeatedly in contact with the Taliban, despite his denial of reports that he met with Taliban representatives in the Middle East earlier this year.

One U.N. diplomat dismissed Eide’s denials, saying he “did talk with the Taliban, and on more than one occasion.”

U.S. CAUTIOUS ON TALIBAN TALKS

Another Western diplomat said key members of the NATO coalition that has troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan were aware of Eide’s contacts and were not opposed to them.

“We just want to make sure that they’re coordinated with the Afghan government and that no one’s running their own negotiations,” the Western diplomat said, adding the Security Council was likely to give Ban the green light he was seeking.

The new U.N. envoy, Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura, who arrived in Kabul to take up his post over the weekend, is expected to continue Eide’s contact with the Taliban.

There is some support among NATO member states for Karzai’s reconciliation programs. Last week, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband urged the Afghans to push hard for a peace settlement with the Taliban.

But the United States is cautious about reconciliation, not wanting to move ahead full steam until it feels there is a strong perception it is beating the Taliban militarily as a result of President Barack Obama’s new Afghan policy, which included a “surge” of an extra 30,000 U.S. troops.

Ban’s report also confirmed the security situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated to the point where 2009 was the most volatile year since a U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001.

It said the number of civilians killed last year rose 14 percent over 2008 to 2,412, most of them by “anti-government elements” such as the Taliban.

It also warned against a “militarization of the overall effort in Afghanistan” and called for many non-military tasks to be handed over to Afghan civilian institutions.

(Additional reporting by Sue Pleming in Washington; Editing by John O’Callaghan)

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Karzai unlikely to claim Afghan election victory soon

September 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Sep.17 (ANI): With accusations of vote fraud piling up around Afghanistan’s presidential election, incumbent Hamid Karzai is unlikely to claim victory any time soon.

At the very least, a national electoral complaints commission investigating fraudulent voting will take weeks to determine how much of Karzai’s officially declared 54.6 percent of the vote will be tossed out, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

At the other extreme, a potential need for a runoff vote could end up stretching Afghanistan’s political turmoil into next spring – presenting President Obama and other NATO leaders with an unsettled and deteriorating climate just as crucial policy decisions are under review.

Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence specialist in Asian affairs now at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said:. “We face a possible constitutional crisis that, if not resolved, becomes a disaster for us, and a partner [Karzai] acting in ways that in effect raise questions as to whether he should be in there or not.”

Aside from a runoff vote, which could be declared if investigations show Karzai’s total falling below 50 percent, some parties are calling for a coalition government, while others support the idea of a nonpolitical transitional government.

That debate has crystallized in a row between foreign officials over the best way to address Afghanistan’s political predicament. Peter Galbraith, a senior US official working in Kabul as the deputy special UN representative for Afghanistan, abruptly left the country after clashing with his boss, Kai Eide, over what path forward to advocate.

Galbraith favors a larger recount of votes, even if it leads to a runoff between Karzai and his main political rival, Abdullah Abdullah, and an extended period of political uncertainty. (ANI)

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Most Afghan prez candidates talk of negotiating peace with the Taliban

August 18, 2009 By 1 Comment

Kabul, Aug.18 (ANI): Most of the candidates contesting the August 20 presidential elections in Afghanistan vow to negotiate peace with the Taliban, but appear clueless about how to move effectively in that direction.

Although incumbent president Hamid Karzai has often talked about negotiating with the Taliban, little of note has happened and the government’s reconciliation program for Taliban fighters is barely functioning.

Karzai, polls indicate is still the front-runner, and he is the most vocal candidate in calling for negotiations. In the past few weeks, his government has started several initiatives to approach local Taliban commanders through tribal elders, the New York Times reports.

However, Karzai’s three main opponents-Abdullah Abdullah, Ashraf Ghani and Ramazan Bashardost-are critical of his record in following through on such promises.

All three of them are opposed to the Taliban, but they also promise that if they are elected, they will make peace a priority.

Both Abdullah, who is the candidate for the largest opposition bloc, the National Front, and Ghani, a former finance minister, say the first step needs to be a grass-roots approach through community and tribal councils.

“If you lose the people, you lose the war,” Abdullah said in an interview to the NYT.

Ghani advocates a cease-fire as the next step, with political negotiations only later.

The head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, says peace and reconciliation must be a top priority of any new government, as does improving relations with Pakistan, which has long backed the Taliban.

The groundwork for that process needs to be laid through the winter, he says, in order to forestall another season of fighting next spring. He also says that the effort has to be broader than the reconciliation and reintegration of local commanders envisaged by the United States military.

The United States and NATO want to negotiate from a position of strength, diplomats and military officials said.

“Reconciliation is important, but not now,” said one Western diplomat in Kabul, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The few senior members of the Taliban who have come over to the government warn that there is so much distrust of the government and foreign forces that it is deterring even low-level members of the Taliban. (ANI)

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US disarmament expert named deputy chief of UN Afghan mission

March 25, 2009 By Leave a Comment

New York – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday named Peter W Galbraith, a US expert on arms control, as deputy chief of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.

Galbraith will replace Christopher Alexander of Canada to work in war-torn Afghanistan, where NATO and non-NATO countries maintain 55,000 military personnel and the US has more than 10,000 troops to fight terrorism, the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The UN mission in Afghanistan, headed by Kai Eide of Norway, plays a crucial role in supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai and coordinating humanitarian assistance in the country.

Galbraith is currently a senior diplomatic fellow at the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. He founded the Windham Resources Group that specializes in international negotiations and strategies. He was involved in humanitarian and security work in Iraq, the former Yugoslavia and Timor Leste. (dpa)

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New US Afghan policy may see surge in diplomatic appointments in Kabul

March 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar.19 (ANI): The new US policy for Afghanistan may see hundreds of additional US officials joining hands with US troops as a part of a larger strategy against extremists.

According to US officials, President Barack Obama may announce the new Afghan strategy next week.

The new policy is considered to be based on the recommendation of Obama’s top national security advisers, besides senior military, diplomatic and intelligence officials.

According to the Washington Post, the strategy could include a more concentrated effort on security, governance and local development in Afghanistan.

However, with the reinforcement of 17,000 troops in the region the primary goal would remain to root the ingrained Talibani forces from the region, and to help protect civilian operations.

Stabilizing Pakistan and weaning out tribal leaders away from insurgent groups would also be one of the prime goals to be achieved.

The strategy proposals include strengthening of the United Nations (UN) as an over all coordinator of nonmilitary efforts in the region.

Sources added that the veteran U.S. diplomat, Peter W. Galbraith may be appointed as deputy to the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan Kai Eide.

US State Department’s senior Foreign Service official, Francis J. Ricciardone may be named deputy ambassador to enhance the diplomatic relation between Washington and Kabul. (ANI)

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