Mairaj ul Hamid Nasri
Pakistan and Afghanistan have been in active state of war with each other because of cross border infiltration and persistent use of aliens of Afghan land against Pakistan. According to data available, the Pakistani border security forces have held dozens of meetings with their Afghan counterparts, have multiple times recorded its protests in diplomatic circles to the Afghan authorities and have provided empirical evidences for involvement of Afghans in anti-state activities inside Pakistan. The government of Pakistan sent multiple delegations to Kabul for holding talks with the Afghans for ensuring negotiated settlement of the outstanding issues including the dominating factor of TTP operations against Pakistan from Afghanistan. The menace of TTP has been so intriguing in Pak-Afghan affairs that none off the states is having clear cut solution for dealing with the militant group. For Afghan Taliban, TTP is a friend in need because both of them have been fighting against ISAF and NATO combined for almost two decades. TTP provided shelter and sanctuaries to their Afghan partners inside their Pakistani hideouts. From these caves and hideouts they have reportedly planned their attacks on NATO forces. Now as the Afghan Taliban are in power so it is ethically challenging for them to drive TTP out of Afghanistan. Although Taliban ensured the international community about the prevention of Afghan land against any other state, yet unable to fulfil their promise by stopping TTP from attacking Pakistani forces. The arrival of Taliban into Afghan power corridors was celebrated in Pakistan because of the surety that at least Pakistan’s Afghanistan will be safe and secure now and we can go for regional connectivity projects and making this region a business hub under the gigantic umbrella projects of China. Nevertheless, the state of affairs worsened due to incapability or incapacity of the Afghan Taliban to fulfil their promises with Pakistan. In this background, Pakistan was compelled by these circumstances to secure its border through self help and target those militants wherever they hide or have safe havons. Starting all out war against Afghanistan was because of Afghan government’s support to the militants of TTP. Border security forces targeted Taliban check posts because from there the militants used to fire Pakistanis check posts. These actions of Pakistan were purely based on the strategic compulsions of the circumstances. Pakistan would have never opted for hard power if the Afghan Taliban were able to solve the menace of TTP as per the diplomatic, political and track II efforts of Pakistan.
In this scenario, both Pakistan and Afghanistan have another friendly state of Qatar which has used its soft power and diplomatic capability to engage both Pakistan and Afghanistan from the very first day of the war. Qatar ensured early 48 house ceasefire for taking a breathe and get sometime for negotiated settlement. Qatar used its every possible mean to persuade both the conflicting parties for ensuring maximum restraint during the war. Qatar invited them to its capital Doha, facilitated their dialogues along with Turkey and used its influence to persuade them for an agreement. Qatar triumphantly succeeded in achieving the desired goal of negotiated settlement and bringing an end to the war.
Its not the first time that Qatar mediated between the two parties. It was started when Afghan Peace Process got momentum with establishment of Taliban Political Office in Qatar back in 2013. Qatar provided its neutral venue for the process until its logical conclusion in February 2020. Owing to the services of the state of Qatar in ensuring peace through negotiations and conflict resolution through table talks, i predict that one day Qatar will win the Nobel Peace Process in recognition of its global services for peace through dialogues.
Qatar has also been very active during the two consecutive OIC summits held in Islamabad for helping Afghanistan in their way forward for political system, international recognition, economic development and national integration to save Afghanistan from diving into looming humanitarian crisis. Moreover, when Afghanistan was hit by natural calamity of recent earthquake, it was the state of Qatar who all out sent humanitarian assistance to the Afghans in these hard times.
By continuing this legacy of brotherhood, Qatar used its sway over Afghans to go for negotiated settlement with Pakistan instead of war. The state of Qatar and Turkey are the guarantors in the recent agreement and hopefully Afghans will keep their word this time.
It is pertinent to mention that owing to the circumstances supported by rational thinking, the menace of TTP and the use of Afghan land against Pakistan, one can predict that TTP is out of the control of Afghan Taliban now and they will again create panic for Afghan Taliban by attacking Pakistani forces and infiltration into main cities of Pakistan. The best way forward is to involve friendly Muslim states of Qatar, Saudia Arabia, Turkey and Iran for bringing permanent solution to the TTP dilemma once and for all.
The writer can be reached at mairajulhamid717@gmail.com.
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