Talking to Taliban

On the face of it,any prospect of talks between the United States and the Taliban is necessary and welcome. With the US-led NATO troops set to make an exit from Afghanistan in 2014,the clock is ticking away fast on finding any reasonable settlement towards peace and stability in a post-NATO Afghanistan. Therefore,the Talibans statement on Tuesday that it would be setting up a liaison office in Qatar means Western and Afghan negotiators will soon have an address to locate the Taliban and talk to them. The decade-long war against the Taliban appears unlikely to be settled by force alone. However,it is very important to get the parameters of any such negotiations right.

To begin with,Taliban representatives have proved to be imposters in the past. But there can be no error more fatal than talking to the Taliban and keeping the Afghan government out of it. The Talibans statement did not mention the Afghan side. Afghan President Hamid Karzai may have blessed the talks between the US and the Taliban,but it was a reluctant approval. He has been angry with the US and Germany for secretly negotiating and pushing for talks without consulting his government. Karzais anxiety is twofold on the one hand,Afghanistan faces an insurgency that came back from the dead three years after the 2001 US-led invasion and grew to take heavy tolls on the Afghan government and NATO. The Taliban,unlikely to accept a mere power-sharing role in Kabul,could just be counting down to the departure of US troops. On the other hand,the US administration is eager to end the unpopular war and bring its soldiers home.

Overlooking any negotiations will be Pakistan its military with its own gameplan for strategic depth,and its severe political crisis and instability. How the US will talk to Afghan Taliban leaders based in Pakistans Quetta,without Pakistan pushing its own agenda,is anybodys guess. As it happens,the US has dropped its earlier insistence that the Taliban lay down arms before talks. In the end,anything less than a relatively peaceful and stable Afghanistan will be a surrender to a group,which,while not defeated,is not winning either.