Opinion Kayani in Kabul

On Saturday,Kayani headed out to Kabul. The top gun of the Pakistan Army was accompanied by Gen. Pasha,the Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani,Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar,Interior Minister Rehman Malik,Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar,and Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir.

(This might not be the manner in which Islamabad would describe the order of precedence in this very high powered delegation. But in Pakistan,few question the primacy of Gen. Kayani in defining the nation’s policies towards Afghanistan,the United States and India.)

After the meetings between the Pakistan delegation and the Afghan President Hamid Karzai,a bilateral commission for peace and reconciliation was announced.

The commission will include the army chiefs and intelligence bosses on both sides,

besides the two foreign ministers.

The Pak Army’s Afghan outreach comes at the beginning of a summer that could define the end game for the prolonged U.S. occupation of Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama had declared that the U.S. will start thinning its troops in Afghanistan from July this year. The U.S. and NATO are formally committed to ending their combat operations in Afghanistan by 2014.

Meanwhile,thanks to the buildup of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan during the last few months,the tempo of the military operations has picked up significantly in the southern and eastern provinces that are the traditional strongholds of the Taliban.

The Obama Administration has announced a willingness to negotiate with

the Taliban,but is holding back for an appropriate moment. The US military leadership wants to weaken the Taliban sufficiently before the talks begin.

The Taliban says it will not talk until the international forces leave Afghanistan. The Pakistan Army is eager to mediate between the Taliban and the United States as part of its ambition to determine the future political arrangements in Afghanistan.

Gen. Kayani has also been offering his services to bridge the differences between the Afghan insurgency based in Pakistan and the government in Kabul.

In one of the unintended consequences of the US plans to leave Afghanistan and engage the Taliban,Karzai has had to tone down his earlier criticism of Pakistan Army as the main source of his problems and look for Kayani’s support in shoring up his own position in Kabul.

Delhi will be deeply interested in the unfolding rapproachement between Kabul and Rawalpindia and the kind of work the proposed bilateral commission will generate on the main issues relating to war and peace in Afghanistan.