The former Indian envoy to Afghanistan stated on the recent development of the Taliban-India relationship that New Delhi withdrew from Kabul because of security concerns but India maintains ties with the Afghan people and continues to support them. “we were looking for a propitious time”.
In the meantime, the Taliban realize that an economically dented Pakistan cannot be useful in economic terms so they are browsing and apparently going for the more beneficial options. Their move is well planned and calculated, on one hand, they are giving the gesture that they are a sovereign state and on another a clear message that their diplomatic ties are beyond their religious doctrine. This also explains their political maturity as former Pakistani Ambassador Abdul Basit even suggested that they must open an academy for diplomatic studies and Pakistani diplomats must join it.
Pakistan’s foreign representative in a press briefing last gave a statement that India is acting as a spoiler which, according to me, is an uncalled-for statement and should have been avoided because India is sending humanitarian aid and that aid is a spoiler, can be a correct statement in the past but not at the moment. The Taliban already are offended by our bold gestures and claims that Pakistan has nothing to do with their victory (fall of Kabul), they rightfully consider their victory, hard-earned only by them. These loaded statements and gestures from Pakistan are a double edged sword; on one hand they are offending the Taliban by claiming a share in their victory, and on the other is the understanding by the Afghan political opposition that Pakistan chose a clear side, out in the open.
In reality, Pakistan must acknowledge both the efforts of the Taliban and Afghan political parties and must refrain from signalling its involvement in the Taliban government via pictures or statements.
Former Indian envoy to Afghanistan Gautum Mukhopadhaya in an interview said that recent Indian alignment with the Taliban has two bases; 1. India wants to reassure the Afghan people that it has not left them and its support for the Afghan people will continue, 2. India is seeing the beginning of domestic resistance against the Taliban within the Afghan population and is monitoring the Afghan political regrouping; he then gave the example of the Dostum meeting in Turkey and NRF in Tajikistan.
The majority of non-Pashtuns always consider Pakistan a spoiler and we must understand today’s Taliban are a multi-ethnic group comprising a large number of non-Pashtuns from northern Afghanistan. They are also in the interim cabinet of the Taliban. When the Taliban captured Panjshir valley, a wrong signal went out of Pakistan, claiming that Pakistan helped the Taliban to get hold of this strategically important valley that had always been out of the control of the Taliban in the past. This wrong signal created serious problems for the Taliban who gave sacrifices to enter this bottleneck valley neighbouring Tajikistan.
India is openly admitting that their relationship is only with the Afghan people not with any regime and it is also counting on political upheavals which are being engineered in different pockets, meaning if the Taliban know the fact that India is praying on humanitarian crises and waiting for their regime change and then still decides to shake hand with India, then let it be.
This signal was so strong that Tajikistan and Iran both blamed Pakistan for intervening in Afghanistan’s political scenario physically and giving an opportunity to India to malign Pakistan. When certain quarters of Pakistan indirectly claimed that Pakistan helped, Farsi, Tajik, and Uzbek speaking groups within the Taliban were very annoyed because they took hold of northern Afghanistan through ethnic, political, and martial engagements with several groups of Kunduz, Nuristan, and Panjshir valley.
Tajikistan and Iran have been very much involved in northern Afghanistan for ages due to linguistic, cultural, and ethnic proximity because northern Afghanistan comprises Farsi-speaking Tajik, Hazara Shia, Uzbek ethnic groups, and Turkish-lineage tribes. Turkey, Iran, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan strongly criticized the Taliban’s interim government during the Islamabad OIC conference and Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi who is interim Minister of Foreign Affairs was not included in photo session of the OIC conference though this OIC session was a special session for the Afghanistan crisis.
Today’s Taliban interim government, being a multi-ethnic ruling group, wants to have working relations with everybody and Pakistan is not the only priority for them. Their relations are edgy with Tajikistan which is hosting all anti-Taliban groups but even then Taliban have not closed doors for talks with Tajikistan.
In an interview of Afghan Defence Minister Mullah Yaqub (who is the son of Taliban founder Mullah Omar) with an Indian channel broadcast on June 3, he expressed willingness to send Afghan army personnel to India for military training, saying they “don’t have any issue with it”.
On May 27, in an interview with an Indian television channel, Taliban leader Anas Haqqani, who is a brother of acting interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, stated Taliban had urged India to reopen its mission in Kabul and re-establish its links with the Afghan people as before, without entertaining any security-related fears.
Pakistan must think carefully and re-evaluate its foreign policy toward Afghanistan, the clear indication from Pakistan that Afghanistan is a sovereign country will be a good start. I am not saying that Pakistan thinks otherwise but the unfortunate point is few naïve gestures are ruining the entire paradigm. The amount of toll Pakistan has paid for the Afghan people no one on earth can pay and a few metric tons of wheat and some bundles of medicine can never suffice for it but Pakistan must understand that Afghans do not seem in the mood to acknowledge Pakistan’s sacrifices in current time and space. India already has done enough damage by brainwashing Afghan youth so any hasty click or statement will further muddy our waters.
India is openly admitting that their relationship is only with the Afghan people not with any regime and it is also counting on political upheavals which are being engineered in different pockets, meaning if the Taliban know the fact that India is praying on humanitarian crises and waiting for their regime change and then still decides to shake hand with India, then let it be.
We must remember that Pakistan has not recognized the interim government of the Taliban for several reasons but the reality is simple— Pakistan is not different from the USA or India or Tajikistan or Iran as it has also not recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government. Does Pakistan have any moral leverage over others? I think diplomatically not.
The former government could recognize the interim government of the Taliban when they captured the whole of Afghanistan after the fall of northern Afghanistan but the government of PTI lost this opportunity, providing an exceptional opportunity for India for telling Afghans that Pakistan is not as good for them as they thought before.
