ISTANBUL: Days after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) claimed credit for getting Pakistan and India to agree to a ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) through backchannel dialogue, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi categorically refuted reports of the arch-rivals engaging in “peace talks”.
“We [Islamabad and New Delhi] are not having any peace talks at the moment and the UAE is not facilitating anything,” the foreign minister told TRTWorld during an interview.
In February, Pakistan and India agreed to adhere to the 2003 ceasefire accord over the heavily militarised disputed region that had been largely ignored since its signing. Troops regularly exchanged artillery, rocket, and small-arms fire across the de facto border, killing hundreds including civilians.
Speaking in a video released Wednesday by Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on April 14, Abu Dhabi ambassador to Washington Yousef al-Otaiba acknowledged an Emirati role “in bringing the Kashmir escalation down” between the two countries.
“We try to be helpful where we have influence with two different countries,” al-Otaiba told H. R. McMaster, a former national security adviser to former US President Donald Trump, on April 14. “India and Pakistan was the most recent one.”
Qureshi, when asked whether the “secret” round of peace talks were “showing more promise” than the peace talks in Afghanistan, said he wanted to “correct” the host, Andrea Sanke.
I’ve “seen stories about the role of mediation, [but] no” the two governments are not engaged in any peace talks, he said.
“[The] UAE is a friend and it has good relations with Pakistan and India,” he said, adding that all friends of Islamabad had been consistently saying that the two were nuclear countries with outstanding issues that could not go to war. Therefore, “the best way forward [for us] is dialogue.”
The foreign minister said Islamabad is willing to sit down, but New Delhi would have to create a conducive environment vitiated by its revocation of autonomy of occupied Kashmir, depriving its people of their fundamental rights.
“Pakistan has never shied away from dialogue. India had shied away, India took certain steps that vitiated the climate,” he asserted.
“Look at the statement Pakistan made, look at the statement Prime Minister Imran Khan made when he won the elections [in August 2018]: ‘You take one step towards peace, we will take two’.
It was an olive branch because we as a government, we have a people-centric agenda. We want economic security, we want to concentrate on our economic stability and for that we need peace, we need peace with our eastern neighbour and we need peace on the western front. So talks make sense.”
STAKEHOLDERS ON SAME PAGE ON AGHAN WAR:
Qureshi said Pakistan, its military, and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), “they’re all on the same page and they all believe a peaceful, stable, democratic and prosperous Afghanistan is in Pakistan’s interests”.
When asked how much Islamabad and the military could do in the Afghan peace process, Qureshi said: “We are all trying very hard to push the peace process forward. It wouldn’t have reached to where it has without Pakistan’s facilitating role.”
In this regard, he also cited the developments of the Doha peace talks, the US-Taliban agreement for withdrawal of US troops, the commencement of intra-Afghan peace talks on September 12, and the agreement on the rules of procedure.
“It wouldn’t have happened without Pakistan’s nudging. Now they are independent people, we can [only] take them so far, ultimately decisions have to be taken by Afghans.”
Sanke questioned whether the talks with the Taliban could be called negotiations and that some people referred to them as “blackmail”. “I think, in the discussions I’ve had with them in Islamabad […] I realised that they have also realised that they need to engage with the rest of the world if they want acceptability and violence is not an option,” Qureshi replied.
“How can you have peace and violence at the same time? That is exactly what we have been telling them [that] reduction in violence is essential [for] leading to a ceasefire,” he said, adding the Taliban were willing to work and honour their commitments.
He also said that it was a “misnomer” when people said that violence in Afghanistan was linked to the Taliban, adding that they [Taliban] could not be blamed for “all the ills in Afghanistan” because there were other terrorist organisations operating in Afghanistan such as the so-called Islamic State.
“There is an element in Afghanistan who has benefitted from [the] war economy and they are spoilers (of peace),” said Qureshi. He also stated that Pakistan’s influence over the Taliban was “exaggerated” and they knew where their interests laid.
“We have been engaging with them because we felt they have a say in Afghanistan and the world has realised after two decades of fights that you cannot have peace until and unless you bring them into the mainstream.”
Sanke then asked the foreign minister whether he potentially saw a situation where terrorist groups like IS and Al-Qaeda stepped in to start working with the Taliban and it went from “bad to worse”.
“We are no supporters of Daesh [and] we are no supporters of Al Qaeda. In fact, we do not want any terrorist organisation to gain a foothold in the region to cause harm to neighbours and beyond,” said Qureshi.
He pointed out that Pakistan had “cleansed” its own areas and started border fencing for more regulation and better border management.
“Have you cleansed your areas? You just had an attack on the most important luxury hotel in Quetta,” Sanke pushed back, adding that the attack had been claimed by the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
“The point is, where are they located? where is the TTP located today?” responded Qureshi, adding that the border with Afghanistan was fluid and had been so for “centuries”.
“We are now managing it and we have managed it a lot better. Hopefully, once the fencing is complete, we are 90 percent there, we will be able to moderate it in a better way.”
When asked if allowing the Taliban back into power would “embolden existing extremist groups in Pakistan”, The foreign minister said “terrorists are terrorists” and that applied everywhere.
They would take advantage of the situation but “I think if you look at the incidents of terrorism, they have declined sharply”.
Sanke pushed back that the decrease in the incidents of terrorism was seen in Pakistan but not in Afghanistan. Qureshi responded that they had not reduced to the extent they should have in Afghanistan and that is why Pakistan had been an advocate of “sit and talk”.
