ISLAMABAD - Despite a flurry of vitriolic statements by Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani, Pakistani officials say they are still willing to work with the Afghan leader.
“We want Ashraf Ghani to succeed,” a top Pakistani security official told The Nation in an exclusive interview Wednesday.
“However, the ground condition in Afghanistan is not to our liking or to that of the Afghan president. That is why he is feeling frustrated,” the official said.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was quoted as saying earlier this week that Pakistan has waged an ‘undeclared war’ against Afghanistan for the last 14 years. Mr Ghani has also recently written a letter to the Pakistani authorities, urging them to take action against Taliban leadership based inside Pakistan.
The statements are in a sharp contrast to Mr Ghani’s conciliatory overtures to the Pakistani civil and military leadership during his visit to Islamabad in November last year.
The deterioration in bilateral ties is a cause of disappointment for both countries. Pakistan had welcomed the ascension of Mr Ghani to power, viewing him as a better alternate to his predecessor, the mercurial Hamid Karzai. Relations had fallen to an all-time low during Mr Karzai’s tenure as mistrust grew and both sides regularly traded barbs.
With the new president, there was a feeling in Islamabad that Ghani would turn the page in the often acrimonious and rocky relationship between the two neighbouring countries.
But the recent spike in deadly attacks and suicide bombings by the Taliban inside Kabul and their expanding influence in several parts of Afghanistan have stiffened the Afghan leader’s diplomatic positioning towards Pakistan.
The attack on the Afghan parliament on June 22 has further dented the bilateral relations as some in Afghanistan have blamed the Pakistani spy organisation, ISI, for orchestrating the attacks. Pakistani officials, however, vehemently deny the allegations.
Furthermore, Afghan officials have also expressed displeasure over the refusal of the Afghan Taliban to formally enter into direct peace talks. In their view, Pakistan has not pushed Taliban hard enough to enter the talks.
Pakistani officials, on their part, claim that much of the Afghan misgivings are unfounded and an expression of their inability to control their own turf.
The Operation Zarb-e-Azb, which was initiated last year in North Waziristan tribal region, has pushed militants back into the Afghan territory, officials in the garrison town of Rawalpindi say. Furthermore, they point out, there is a divergence and disagreement within the ranks of the Afghan Taliban.
“The political component and the field commanders of the Taliban are not on the same page,” the top official said in the interview. “The field commanders are not willing to give up the fight. They want to fight on and declare victory.”
Pakistani security officials maintain that contrary to the Afghan and American assertions, Pakistan has little sway on the Afghan Taliban. “We convinced some of them to be part of the peace process.
We are working, along with China, to bring the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. But they are not a monolith group. Some of them don’t want to give up their weapons.”
Another troubling factor in the combustible mix is the emergence of IS, the Islamic State, inside Afghanistan. The group has been making inroads inside several Afghanistan districts, raising the eyebrows of both Afghan officials and Taliban.
“They are very well financed,” the Pakistani official said, referring to IS, or ISIL. He claimed that the group is paying $1,100 per month to its foot-soldiers. The increased presence and outreach of IS inside Afghanistan will lead to clashes with the Taliban and the infighting will inevitably lead to destabilisation of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials here say.
The sudden rise of IS in Afghanistan has spurred Pakistani apprehensions about the old nemesis: India.
Relations with the eastern neighbourhood have not been ideal since last year. Tensions kept bubbling over the Line of Control, LoC, throughout last year as both sides engaged one another with heavy gunfire. Statements by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet ministers have also added to Pakistani concerns about Indian intentions. “We have some intelligence reports that India is financing IS inside Afghanistan,” the top Pakistani official said.
“India wants to use the group to cause disruption not only inside Afghanistan but also in Pakistan, especially with relation to the Pak-China Economic Corridor.”
India wants to bring the situation to such a level that the Chinese feel discouraged, he added. “However, the Chinese are very determined,” the official said. “They are even more determined than us.”