Prime Minister Gilani’s Friday advisory will also give much to the relief to President Barak Obama, who needs a good talking point for his re-election bid. What concessions were offered to the GHQ Shura for the Gilani gesture is unclear as of now. But undoubtedly Pakistan’s volatile relationship with Washington, which has been effectively on hold since the Salala attack of November 26 is on the mend.
It was on Tuesday that Afghan President Hamid Karzai had talked to Prime Minister Gilani on phone. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in London on the sidelines of an international conference and reiterated that Pakistan remained a key player in the American scheme of things for the region.
Kabul has had some contact with the Quetta based groups but nothing much came of the exercise even as it is in no mood to join the Qatar table, its preference being direct talks. So much so, Gilani’s statement calling on the Taliban and all other Afghan groups, including Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), to participate in the reconciliation process marked a forward movement.
HIA led by former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, like other Afghan Islamist groups, is believed to be sheltered on the Pakistani soil. HIA sees Gilani’s initiative as a “vindication of its principled stand”, and has offered to lend its support to peace efforts
“We’ve been saying all along that all stakeholders in the Afghan imbroglio should sit together, discuss the issue threadbare, and come up with a viable solution without foreign interference,” the group’s political whip Dr Ghairat Baheer told The Express Tribune, a Karachi daily.
He went on to say that unless peace returns to Afghanistan, it is not possible to guarantee peace in Pakistan. “The interests of Pakistan and Afghanistan are inter-woven. Our destiny is common,” the Hizb leader added.
The Taliban, on its part, reacted cautiously. Its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told The Express Tribune that the Taliban leadership would discuss the matter and issue a formal reaction.
Reconciliation is doable, and political process is the only means to achieve the goal but banking on the Taliban for forward movement is a risky proposition since the Taliban groups have not demonstrated any change in their ideology and methodology.
As Michael Semple, an Afghanistan expert and former adviser to the European Union mission puts it, Gilani’s statement is more about politics than talks. It is about Pakistan, Afghanistan and America – not the Taliban per se. There is no denying whatsoever that the Americans are pleased by Gilani rhetoric which in their view has the same potential as the earlier initiatives of Pakistan that enabled opening of a Taliban office in Qatar.
