Mr Premier work for Pakistan’s peace as compared to Afghanistan’s, let Afghans solve their own problems.
Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM - DAWN.COM
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
Does Pakistan truly believe that now Pakistan can support ANY group in Afghanistan to form government and they will be at peace with Pakistan?
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
who knows, Pakistani politicians as well as military top brass is deluded.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
Not a promising start: Sartaj Aziz?s Kabul visit - DAWN.COM
**LITTLE good comes out of an unwanted visit, but in the world of diplomacy, it is always better to try than not. Sartaj Aziz, the PML-N point man on foreign policy and national security, went to Kabul on Sunday as a barely welcome visitor. Mr Aziz, after all, had already earned the ire of the Karzai administration for allegedly suggesting a carve-up of Afghanistan to accommodate the Afghan Taliban — a claim that the PML-N quickly and strongly repudiated. In any case, it would have hardly gone unnoticed that Mr Aziz’s trip, during which he invited President Karzai to visit Pakistan, came on the heels of the very highest level of British politicians travelling to Pakistan to talk security. The British visitors to Pakistan most likely pressed hard to get the new Pakistani government and the security establishment to re-engage a balky President Karzai and help restart the abortive Doha reconciliation process. So an unwanted visit by a potentially reluctant visitor — it was hardly an auspicious start to the PML-N leadership’s foray into Afghanistan.
**
As if to underscore the sheer intransigence and near petulance that has come to characterise the Karzai camp in recent months, on Monday, President Karzai himself appeared to suggest that the invitation to visit Pakistan was barely worth his consideration, accepting the offer in principle but setting various preconditions for an actual visit. A day earlier the Afghan foreign minister, Zalmai Rassoul, had also tinged his optimism on positive change going forward in the relationship with Pakistan with pessimism about what past contacts with Pakistan had, from the Afghan government’s perspective, brought over the years. Into that most staggering of challenges, then, Mr Aziz waded in on Sunday and as is the nature of such high-profile diplomacy, the positive results, if any, will only be known in the weeks and months ahead.
What is clear, though, is that Pakistan’s — the security establishment’s, really — attempt to sideline Mr Karzai has, as could have been predicted, backfired. Whether Mr Karzai is part of the solution or part of the problem when it comes to a post-2014 settlement was not for Pakistan to decide, especially when Mr Karzai will be in the presidency until next April. To argue for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process while dismissing as irrelevant and unwanted the incumbent head of the Afghan government was hubris that could easily have been avoided. For reasons right and wrong, no one really trusts each other in the AfPak conundrum — but that does not mean they cannot work together at all.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
Karzai sets conditions for Pak visit
KABUL - Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday gave a lukewarm response to Pakistan’s invitation to visit Islamabad, setting conditions for any high-level talks designed to mend increasingly frosty relations.
Pakistan on Sunday sent its top diplomat to offer further assistance to Afghanistan’s efforts to reach a deal with Taliban insurgents to end 12 years of war.
On Monday the president’s office said Karzai accepted the invitation “in principle”.
**But he said a high-ranking delegation could visit Pakistan only when the agenda is specified, initial preparations have been made and a “serious and effective struggle against terrorism and the peace process are on the top of the agenda”.
**
International efforts to start talks with the Taliban are in disarray after the disastrous opening of a liaison office for the insurgents in Qatar. A furious Karzai slammed it as an unofficial embassy for a Taliban government-in-exile. Last week Karzai’s chief of staff, Karim Khorram, claimed the Taliban office was part of a plot to break up Afghanistan, orchestrated by either Pakistan or the United States.
Meanwhile, the Afghan president told the top US military commander that he was ready in principle to let American troops stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, a month after suspending security talks.
General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, is the most senior American to meet Hamid Karzai since he suspended negotiations for a long-term security pact in protest at how the Taliban opened a liaison office in Qatar.
Karzai’s office said both sides discussed the Afghan-US security pact.
“President Karzai once again emphasised that the Afghan people have suffered from long years of war in their country, and want peace to be restored,” a statement said.
“President Karzai said with that hope, Afghans are ready to sign a security pact with the US, on condition that it leads to peace and stability in the country, the strengthening of Afghan forces, and a united and sovereign Afghanistan,” it added.
Karzai suspended the security talks, furious that the Taliban styled their office in Doha as an embassy for a self-styled government in waiting.
Special Correspondent In Washington adds: The United States Monday underscored Pakistan’s role in Afghan reconciliation even as Afghan officials voiced skepticism.
State Department Spokesperson, Jen Psaki, when asked to comment on the weekend visit by Sartaj Aziz, said Washington viewed any steps contributing to building Pakistan-Afghanistan relations as “very important,” “Pakistan is an important partner in supporting a secure and stable Afghanistan, which is vital to the security of the region,” she said at a press briefing.
The spokesperson also noted that “Pakistan’s own security and stability is tied with successful outcome in Afghanistan,” where the US is looking to conclude its combat role by the end of 2014.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
Pakistan could be likened to a drug addict who cannot survive without proper dosage on regular basis. Given the mindset of Pakistan's military establishment, I have no doubt in my mind that Pakistan would continue to meddle in Afghanistan's affairs. The theory of 'Strategic Depth' is still very much alive.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
^ this strategic depth has deteriorated our relations both with afghan government as well as taleban. Even the strategic assets (taleban) are not under Pakistans control.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
Situation has actually reversed in a way that now Taliban use Pakistan as their ‘strategic depth’. A good many of their top commanders reside in Pakistan with their families and businesses while they supervise their fight in Afghanistan. Given the new ground realities of world focus on Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am not sure how Pakistan could utilize this ‘strategic depth’ even if the Taliban are set in the saddle once again.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/images/2013/07/23/20130723_16.jpg
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
baaz nahin aayain gay yeh.
Karzai was a bit skeptical about taleban’s office in Doha as it was opened by Pakistan’s help (maybe Afghanistan was kept in the dark). The taleban posted there have Pakistani passports and are shuttling between Qatar and Pakistan.
Pakistan wants positive engagement with Afghanistan: FO - DAWN.COM
Chaudhry added that the political office of the Afghan Taliban in Doha, which was shut to protest demands they remove a sign that identified the movement as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, would soon reopen.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
baaz nahin aayain gay yeh.
^ "Chut'ti nahi hey muNh sey ye kaafir lagi hui" :)
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
karzai is forgetting who the baap is. Pakistan needs to shut down the "trade" (smuggling of pakistani goods back to us) and see who runs to whom. The headache that afghanistan has caused pakistan is not even matched by india.
Re: Pakistan to work for Afghan peace, supports no one group: PM
The truth lies somewhere between the stories of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s terrorised people and Pakistan’s official stance. But how many of us have tried to get to it? The fundamental question that the people of the war torn province are asking today is, what is Pakistan’s plan for its Pakhtuns?
**As citizens of this country, we are aware of our contributions to Pakistan and the opportunities it has given us. But we are beginning to question our future.
**
Most of our people who have seen the unspeakable horrors of terrorism are poor. **They have been displaced by military operations, their women raped and their heads shaved by the Taliban, their homes and schools destroyed by the Taliban and the operations. Some have lived under a tent for four years or more. They have seen Pakistani officials and the Taliban chat over tea at security checkpoints in Swat, and ended up being bombed when the state suddenly decided that a clean-up was needed. Some of what we hear from them may sound far-fetched, but a lot of it is true. -
The Kukikhel tribesman from Tirah valley in Khyber Agency, where an operation has started recently, were asked to sign a go-ahead for a clean-up. According to them, there were no Taliban in their area. The head of the tribe refused to sign the paper. He said the Kukikhel did not let any Taliban in, and there was no need for an operation. A military operation involving gunships and F-16s will bring large scale destruction, and will be even worse than drone attacks. Some weeks later, hundreds of Taliban arrived in Tirah, occupied people’s homes, drove them out, and stole their belongings. The displaced families now live with their relatives in Peshawar, in camps in Kurram Agency, and in other parts of the country. An operation against the militants ensued. But the people of the area are convinced that it is a strategic move to infiltrate the Taliban into Afghanistan, ahead of the US withdrawal that will complete in 2014.** Locals say Pakistan is still supporting certain militant groups to ensure it has influence in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal.
**Why do we expect these militants to protect our interests in Afghanistan when they have killed thousands of our people? While we are trying to exercise influence in Afghanistan, our own Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is falling apart.
**
The policy has also resulted in the spread of the medieval veil of Wahhabi Islam over our culture. Our music, our shrines, our folk dances, our poets - all part of a secular Pashtun society - have been attacked systematically. Our singers have left the country, there is no music and dance in our weddings any longer, and poets like Rahman Baba and Ghani Khan are seen as heretics. Ask any Pakhtun about this assault on our identity and they will tell you the reality of life in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa today. But not all in Pakistan see this, because not all in Pakistan understand our culture.
There is a growing breed of born again Muslims in other parts of Pakistan with odd ideas about us Pakhtuns. In the cities of Islamabad and Lahore, Begums arrange fancy tea parties and invite retrogressive women to deliver religious sermons, emphasizing inane rituals like not wearing nail polish while praying or fasting. Teachers and professors who went to universities in the West subscribe to such views in a search for identity, and talk about our part of the country having never visited it. These drawing room intellectuals are lucky that the establishment has been able to contain this war to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.
**The establishment has succeeded in convincing many non-Pakhtuns that the Taliban are a reaction of the Pakhtun society to foreign occupation. But what foreign occupation is there in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? It is only this ideological terrorism that seeks to destroy our secular identity. Our threat is internal, not external.
**
The Taliban do not represent the Pakhtun people. We all know that there are thousands of Punjabi Taliban. Do they also then represent the Punjabis? They are a product of the same system. The men who have been trained for fighting but dropped out will tell you how they were picked up from village mosques and madrassas and were brainwashed and trained in camps many of which were used during the Kashmir ‘Jihad’.
Pakistan needs to wake up to what the Pakhtuns are thinking. **Based on what they actually see on the ground, the Pakhtuns know the establishment has not changed its policy. And they are asking how many Pakhtun lives it will take for it to realize what kind of chaos will follow if it reinstalls the Taliban in Afghanistan and perhaps also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. **