The Twain Meet At Ashgabat

Talking of the outcome of the four-day talks, the UN mediator said both sides had agreed to form a shared executive, a shared legislature and a shared judiciary but had yet to decide on power-sharing. "The Afghans prefer the phrase sharing of institutions," he remarked in a press conference in Islamabad on March 16, though he couldn't explain the semantics. As it turned out, after the initial euphoria over the Ashgabat accord, things were kept deliberately vague considering the warring Afghan factions still find it difficult to reconcile their vision of a broad-based future government in Afghanistan.

In fact, those following events in Afghanistan are amused that Afghan antagonists who till now have treated each other as traitors and bad Muslims can over four days in a secluded botanical garden in Ashgabat actually agree on forming a united government. The Afghans never fail to humour their hosts, possibly for the sake of diplomacy, and even sign peace accords and agree to power-sharing. But none of these agreements have been implemented fully so far, not even the one Mujahideen leaders agreed on in the early '90s in the Holy Ka'aba in Mecca. And there's no reason to think this one will.

Yet, it would be wrong to dismiss the Ashgabat accord as a non-starter. That the Taliban and their opponents held two rounds of talks here in February and March and have agreed to meet again, possibly in April and preferably at an agreed venue somewhere in Afghanistan, is an achievement in itself. Though the Taliban, who control nearly 90 per cent of Afghanistan's territory, haven't yet given up on their stated goal of unifying the whole country under a single authority, the desire for peace is becoming stronger, whether in response to the war-weary Afghans' yearning for peace or due to international pressure for an end to bloodshed in Afghanistan. The armed factions will have to agree on a permanent ceasefire if they're to convince the world that they're serious about peace and reconciliation.

What the factions did agree on at Ashgabat was the release of 20 prisoners each through the International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc). Though the two sides have exchanged more prisoners in the past under icrc and Afghan peacemaker Syed Jalal-reportedly acting on Saudi Arabia's behalf-the move could help in confidence-building and pave the way for further exchange of pows. There are a few thousand prisoners on both sides and an end to their miseries could begin progress on the more contentious issues of ceasefire and power-sharing. The Taliban always insist on exchange of prisoners ahead of all else owing to the pressure from the families of imprisoned men. The anti-Taliban alliance has grasped this weakness and is now a bit less enthusiastic about such exchange unless there's substantive progress on other issues.

The Ashgabat meet might not have achieved much in these terms, but it did demonstrate the Taliban's recent willingness to address the concerns of the international community. It wasn't coincidental that the first UN official arrived in Kabul to formally end its international staff's seven-month boycott the same day the UN-brokered accord was announced (March 14).

The world body had evacuated its foreign staff from Afghanistan on August 21 last year when an Italian UN worker was killed in Kabul in retaliation to the US attack a day before on alleged terrorist camps run by Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden. To make the UN staff's return possible, the Taliban promised to expedite investigations and invited the UN to send its lawyers and investigators to join the effort. They'd earlier announced the arrest of two Pakistani Taliban suspected of involvement. It also set up special security councils in Afghanistan's five major cities to provide maximum protection to UN foreign workers based here.

Last month, the Taliban also took a team of Western, Pakistani and Afghan journalists to an area near Jalalabad in Nangrahar province to show them the 34 heroin-manufacturing labs they had destroyed. Abdul Hameed Akhundzada, a top Taliban official in the Afghan anti-narcotics department, said they planned a similar operation in Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz province in an area where Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan form a triangle. The UN Drugs Control Programme praised the effort even as the Taliban were urged to do more and ban poppy cultivation. But the US wasn't impressed; it not only 'decertified' Afghanistan, along with Burma, for its lack of effort in combating drug trafficking and production but also accused the Taliban of cooperating with the drug barons and sharing profits.

The US was also unconvinced by the Taliban's claim that Osama Bin Laden had gone missing. Most observers believe the Saudi dissident, indicted in a US court for his role in the Kenya and Tanzania bombings of US embassies last year, to be hiding in Afghanistan. The US government warned it would launch fresh attacks if Afghanistan didn't expel Bin Laden or handed him over to the US or Saudi Arabia for trial. However, the Taliban's move to make Bin Laden 'disappear', confiscate his satphone, restrict his movement, and screen his visitors were seen as serious attempts to paralyse any operations he was planning and to reassure the Americans that he wouldn't be allowed to use the Afghan soil for his political goals.

Are the Taliban then trying to gain international acceptability and end their diplomatic isolation? They were, in fact, encouraged that delegations from China, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan met their representatives in Islamabad, Kabul and Kandahar and for the first time heeded their views on Afghanistan. The Taliban also tried to reassure the Chinese and the Central Asians that they had no desire to export the Islamic revolution to their countries. Yet, none of these countries is willing to recognise the Taliban-led government, except Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the uae. But the Saudis too expelled the Taliban ambassador from Riyadh and withdrew their envoy from Kabul following Taliban's refusal to expel Bin Laden; the uae isn't on very friendly terms either. And Pakistan took a backseat when Turkmenistan emerged the mediator at Ashgabat.

The next round of negotiations will be the toughest when the two discuss the details of sharing power in institutions of the government. The Taliban are unlikely to compromise on the status of their supreme leader, Mulla Mohammad Omar, as the Amirul Momineen (Commander of the Faithful) or their puritanical Islamic agenda. They believe their existing regime is broad-based enough, including representatives of non-Pashtoon ethnic groups like Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, etc.They may concede a few junior government posts to the Northern Alliance, which in effect means Tajik warlord Ahmad Shah Masood's group, as its other components led by Gen Rasheed Dostum, Karim Khalili, Prof Sayyaf and Shaikh Asef Mohseni don't have much military presence now. The Alliance is unlikely to accept such an arrangement. Is it stalemate then? With winter on its way out and the traditional fighting summer months fast approaching in Afghanistan, the mediators have little time to persuade the Aghans to desist from the old cycle of war.