Karzai, Ahmadinejad in Pakistan for challenging summit

The Washington Post

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — On a day when U.S. drone-fired missiles struck twice in the militant havens of Pakistan’s tribal region, reportedly killing 14 fighters, the talk in Islamabad was all about how to broker peace in war-weary Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived here Thursday for a two-day summit that has raised hopes, however slim, of reviving nascent reconciliation talks with the Taliban initiated by the United States more than a year ago.

Karzai — who was not part of the initial U.S.-Taliban talks, although Obama administration officials said he was briefed on them regularly — arrived in Pakistan after telling the Wall Street Journal that the Taliban was “definitely” supportive of negotiating a settlement with his government and its primary backer, the United States.

“People in Afghanistan want peace, including the Taliban,” Karzai told the Journal. “They’re also people like we all are. They have families, they have relatives, they have children, they are suffering a tough time.”

But longtime Taliban observers here, as well as clerics who remain in touch with the militants, said his analysis is overly simplistic. The Taliban movement includes al-Qaeda-aligned fighters who demand expulsion of all foreign troops from Afghanistan; others who seek restoration of the pre-2001 Taliban government and will not share power with Karzai; and moderates who see the wisdom of winding down a decade-long war that has bloodied all sides.

For U.S. archenemy Iran, the summit in Islamabad is more about trade, energy and security issues, officials say. But Tehran also has a stake in promoting a stabilized Afghanistan. Iran’s involvement in the discussions further complicates an already complex set of competing tribal, regional and international interests.

And Pakistan, which shares a long and porous border with Afghanistan, is often suspected of backing terrorist attacks and groups who want to stage such attacks in Karzai’s country.

“It is certainly one of the greatest diplomatic challenges in history,” said Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, a prominent Pakistani who has led peace efforts for years and is set to meet with Karzai on Saturday.

Among the challenges are the U.S. drone attacks: Two on Thursday targeted al-Qaeda-linked militants and Taliban leaders in North Waziristan, killing 14, local security officials said. Carried out to support NATO operations in Afghanistan, the missile strikes are immensely unpopular in Pakistan — and when innocents are killed, the strikes provoke sympathy for the militants.

Even so, some nonviolent Islamists see progress.

“Things are moving ahead now, but it will take time,” Maulana Sami ul-Haq, a pro-Taliban cleric in Pakistan known to have influence over the Afghan Taliban, said before the summit.

But he said the Taliban has no interest in power-sharing: “We are laughing at the Americans’ offer of a few ministries in the Karzai government. We are fighting for the liberation of the country.”

Karzai has expressed concern and irritation over repeated U.S. references to the important role Pakistan should play resolving the Afghanistan war, and over direct U.S. peace talks with the Taliban. He told the Journal that his government set up a meeting with Taliban representatives outside Afghanistan several weeks ago, and U.S. officials were invited to attend.

A former adviser who maintains close contact with Karzai described that meeting, and Karzai’s willingness to go to Pakistan, as efforts to demonstrate that he is in control of those relationships.

The U.S.-Taliban-Afghan government meeting has so far had no follow-up, officials said. And a Taliban spokesman strongly denied that the secret talks Karzai described had occurred, the Associated Press reported. “The Taliban did not talk with the Kabul government anywhere,” spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said.

The talks launched by the Obama administration in late 2011 with Tayeb al-Agha, a representative of Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, are designed to establish “confidence-building measures,” including the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar where the Afghan government could be brought into the discussions.

The administration has asked the Taliban to issue public statements renouncing international terrorism and supporting the Afghan constitution. The Taliban has asked for the transfer of five Afghan prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The prisoners would be transferred to house arrest in Qatar in two phases, with the first three to be followed by two additional detainees within 60 days.

Karzai initially rejected the tentative deal, on grounds he had not been sufficiently consulted, and recalled his ambassador to Qatar. The proposed arrangement was also sharply criticized by some U.S. lawmakers. The administration must notify Congress 30 days in advance of any transfer of prisoners, and must certify that there is no risk the prisoners could return to the battlefield.

The Qatar channel — along with U.S. hopes that the Afghan government eventually will participate — has been at a standstill until Karzai resolves his strained relationship with the Qataris.

Bringing the complications full circle, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani last week made his own visit to Qatar, where he signed a major natural gas agreement.