Intra-Afghan Negotiations - The Long Walk to Peace

Chayanika Saxena | 10 October 2020
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It finally happened on a Saturday. On September 12 2020, as the world was taking a day off, another round of peace negotiations had just been kick started to restore security and tranquillity in Afghanistan. It was no coincidence that the ongoing intra-Afghan negotiations began closely on the heels of the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. After all, the so-called global war on terror, which embroiled yet another generation of Afghans in an internationalised war, was very much a consequence of a terrorist attack that was concocted and orchestrated from the infamous cave complexes in Afghanistan. The current round of negotiations, which have brought the Afghan government and the Taliban under the same roof, offers some hope and promise. However, given the antecedents, it will be both pragmatic and wise to temper the present enthusiasm with caution. After all, the efforts and initiatives that were corralled together in the past were not able to change much on the ground.

On the contrary, some of them, such as the Murree Dialogue, only ended up aggravating the existing fault lines while also putting newer ones in place. That said, the dynamics of this round of negotiations are a little different, mainly as it has brought the major Afghan players to the table of talks together. Also, the American eagerness to leave combined with the increasing restlessness on Pakistan's part not to let the spillover of the Taliban's supposed victory create a jihadist euphoria within its territory may convince the warring sides to strike a deal however slowly. 

The commencement of these negotiations was years in the making. Fighting what became America's longest war outside of its shores, the global war on terror was fraught with many troubles from the get-go. Apart from being a massive drain on the U.S. coffers, the American invasion of Afghanistan has been mired in controversies for which there has been little accountability. The only time that the American humanitarian disasters and war crimes in Afghanistan were called into question by the International Criminal Court, it was summarily quashed and crushed by the U.S. through the means of open threats. From the creation of the Afghan Local Police Force to the re-arming of the so-called warlords, the American counter-insurgency methods have failed to produce viable and durable results. Instead, their continuing reluctance to engage with the Taliban at a time when the latter was far from being a formidable force that it is today may have stretched the war by years. While it is only speculative to assume that the war in Afghanistan may have ended a lot earlier had the U.S. learnt from its earlier failures (in Vietnam, for instance), it is not misplaced to believe that, perhaps, the Taliban would not have been basking in the symbolic strength that it is enjoying today. The Taliban, as I have mentioned elsewhere, has become a fait accompli; there is no doing away with it. Hence, all the stakeholders, including a reluctant India, have had to warm up to the idea of talking to the Taliban; an insurgent group for which the signing of an agreement with the U.S. in Doha in February 2020 was essentially a big morale boost. 

Speaking at the inauguration of the intra-Afghan negotiations, the U.S. Secretary of the State, Mike Pompeo minced no words in signalling that it is now for the different Afghan stakeholders to walk the talk. Mentioning that while the "world wants you (Afghans) to succeed", Pompeo also added that "we are prepared to support your negotiations should you ask. But the time is yours". He went on further to add that "your choices and conduct will affect both the size and scope of future U.S. assistance", reiterating their President's belief that the American assistance is no longer a "blank cheque". The American fatigue with the war in Afghanistan is understandable, particularly in the run-up to the upcoming Presidential elections in November 2020. However, its desire to pull the plug on the Afghan war will not spell an end to the latent and manifest conflicts that continue to affect the society and the state. One ought to recall what Bruce Riedel had said about the war in Afghanistan in 2015 that it "will not end because the White House says it is over". The war will end, mostly, if not only, when Afghans want it to end. The situation both on the ground and off it, however, is far from being "ripe" for peace to take effect in Afghanistan.

At the outset, the Afghan negotiations have come to be affected by procedural issues that will determine how the talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban take place. While both sides have put "contact groups" in place, they do not see eye-to-eye neither on the modalities of the talks nor the content. Amongst the sticking points that are keeping the fate of the talks in the balance are the validity of the US-Taliban deal and the schools of jurisprudence. According to the Taliban, the Afghan government is unwilling to accept the Doha agreement of February 29, 2020, as the basis of the intra-Afghan talks. This is understandably so as the Afghan government was kept out of the said agreement. In response to this contention, the former has provided four options: (i) Taliban accepts the deal that U.S., NATO signed with the Afghan government; (ii) neither agreements are recognised as having authority; (iii) both sides start talks "based on the national interest of Afghanistan", and (iv) the Quran and Hadith are the main authority for the talks, replacing all others (see here for more details). So far, the deadlock on this aspect has not broken. Similarly, the dispute over the school of jurisprudence or fiqh remains as the Taliban wants only the Hanafi school to prevail, which affects the status of those following the Shia' sect of Islam. Once again, there is yet to be an agreement on this front too.

Given that the intra-Afghan negotiations are yet to take off the ground, the negotiators on both sides have rightly observed that "no one can predict when these disagreements will come to an end". In the meantime, both sides have been engaging in posturing to create a firmer ground for themselves for whenever the negotiations start. Where a change in the nature and composition of the Taliban delegation at the start of the negotiations was meant to signal both a distance from Pakistan and the Quetta shura's control over the peace process, the Afghan Peace Council led by Abdullah Abdullah is trying to gather regional and international support in the government's favour. His recent trips to Pakistan and India show that the Afghan government is trying to reach out to the regional players as their sovereign equal; a privilege that the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (in)disputably enjoys. 

The road that lies ahead of Afghans and Afghanistan is both long and tortuous. It is also not without roadblocks and spoilers that come in different shapes and sizes, including the Islamic State. However, one must recognise and appreciate the potential that this round of negotiations carries, particularly as it has managed to get the hitherto irreconcilable sides to at least start the talks to talk to each other. As of now, the negotiations remain nebulous, if not entirely feeble and weak. Our collective objective as an international community must be to keep these talks afloat and create an environment that is conducive for the talks to a concrete shape. We cannot, and must not, expect the outcomes to present themselves in no time. After all, for a conflict that is in its fourth decade, it will take more than a quick fix to heal the damage done.

Chayanika Saxena is a President’s Graduate Fellow and a PhD Candidate at the Department of Geography, National University of Singapore. 

Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy. 


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