US, Afghan leaders try to mend fences
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Matthew Rusling
In spite of a show of unity this week between Washington and Kabul during Afghan President Hamid Karzai's four-day visit to the United States, hurdles remain over whether and how to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table.
The Obama administration this week rolled out the red carpet for Karzai in a bid to smooth over its recent spat with the visiting leader. The visit took a cordial tone and the Afghan president appeared in public on Wednesday with U.S. President Barack Obama and Thursday with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
That marked a sharp shift away from the tensions that had bedeviled the U.S.-Afghan relations in recent months, when the Obama administration criticized what it viewed as Karzai's failure to reduce corruption while Karzai countered that Western nations had tried to sabotage his country's elections.
Now, there is talk of negotiation with the Taliban, while in the past, Washington and Kabul differed over how to approach such talks, if they were to occur at all.
Karzai has supported negotiating with the Taliban senior leadership, whereas Washington would rather extend the invitation only to the rank and file.
If Karzai sticks to that approach, it could cause tensions between the two countries, some analysts say.
Still, the visit was about making sure Washington and Kabul are on the same page, said Kamran Bokhari, regional director of Middle East and South Asia analysis at global intelligence company Stratfor.
"You can't deal with the Taliban effectively unless the other side is strong enough and coherent enough," he said.
And that means being practical.
"Both countries are trying to take a more pragmatic approach to bringing in the Taliban to the negotiation table," said Barmak Pazhwak, program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Indeed, the possibility of re-integrating the Taliban's rank and file into Afghan society will be discussed at the "peace jirga (peace conference)," which is scheduled for later this month. The meeting is expected to gather 2,500 representatives from all of Afghanistan's provinces, Karzai said Thursday at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.
Critics, however, have argued that a program to "re-integrate" lower level Taliban members into society has made little progress over the last five years.
Still, Karzai on Thursday expressed his support for the idea.
"These thousands of the Taliban that we are trying to address and reintegrate are ideologically not against us. They are countryside boys who don't hate the United States…(and) we must try legitimately to return them."
"Reintegration means the return back home…of those thousands of Taliban soldiers who have been driven out of their homes and their country by circumstances beyond our reach or control and beyond theirs," he said.
"Reconciliation" or negotiation with the Taliban leadership, is a separate and more complex issue, he said.
Speaking on the same occasion, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said certain conditions must be met before reconciliation can occur.
"People can not just show up and say that they are prepared to re-enter Afghan society after having directed suicide attacks and other kinds of violence against Afghanistan," she said.
"This process really starts with the re-integration…of people who for a variety of reasons found themselves in the ranks of the Taliban."
And any talk of "reconciliation" would require much thinking about what exactly the term means, she said.
From Clinton's perspective, all Taliban seeking "reintegration" or "reconciliation" must abide by the laws and the constitution of Afghanistan, and that includes cutting ties with Al Qaeda and respecting women's rights, she said.
"I don't think any of us can predict what the outcome of the next phase will be. First the president (Karzai) has to have his own consultative peace jirga and listen to his own people because they may have very strong opinions," she said.
There are also Afghan Taliban leaders who do not want to reconcile, she said. "We don't expect to see, you know, them walking through the door."
For now, many senior Taliban leaders are still on a UN list of terrorists who are precluded from being invited to negotiation, although some UN officials have called for the removal of some members off that list.
Another problem is some insurgents' belief that their side is winning, and that gives them little incentive to come to the negotiation table, some critics argue.
Challenges also loom concerning the handover of security duties to Afghan forces by the expected deadline of July of next year decided by the Obama administration.
"We wasted seven or eight years of not developing a very strong security force in Afghanistan," said Scott Payne, senior policy advisor at Third Way think tank. "It will probably be more of a three to five year time frame before we see a highly functional security force in Afghanistan."
Still, the civil working relationship seen this week will help, although the Obama administration may ask for more in some areas than Karzai is willing to give, he said.
"The U.S. seems intent on strengthening local governance capabilities even if those individuals aren't tightly connected to Kabul. Karzai doesn't seem interested in creating other power centers," he said.
-- Xinhua
In spite of a show of unity this week between Washington and Kabul during Afghan President Hamid Karzai's four-day visit to the United States, hurdles remain over whether and how to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table.
The Obama administration this week rolled out the red carpet for Karzai in a bid to smooth over its recent spat with the visiting leader. The visit took a cordial tone and the Afghan president appeared in public on Wednesday with U.S. President Barack Obama and Thursday with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.
That marked a sharp shift away from the tensions that had bedeviled the U.S.-Afghan relations in recent months, when the Obama administration criticized what it viewed as Karzai's failure to reduce corruption while Karzai countered that Western nations had tried to sabotage his country's elections.
Now, there is talk of negotiation with the Taliban, while in the past, Washington and Kabul differed over how to approach such talks, if they were to occur at all.
Karzai has supported negotiating with the Taliban senior leadership, whereas Washington would rather extend the invitation only to the rank and file.
If Karzai sticks to that approach, it could cause tensions between the two countries, some analysts say.
Still, the visit was about making sure Washington and Kabul are on the same page, said Kamran Bokhari, regional director of Middle East and South Asia analysis at global intelligence company Stratfor.
"You can't deal with the Taliban effectively unless the other side is strong enough and coherent enough," he said.
And that means being practical.
"Both countries are trying to take a more pragmatic approach to bringing in the Taliban to the negotiation table," said Barmak Pazhwak, program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Indeed, the possibility of re-integrating the Taliban's rank and file into Afghan society will be discussed at the "peace jirga (peace conference)," which is scheduled for later this month. The meeting is expected to gather 2,500 representatives from all of Afghanistan's provinces, Karzai said Thursday at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington.
Critics, however, have argued that a program to "re-integrate" lower level Taliban members into society has made little progress over the last five years.
Still, Karzai on Thursday expressed his support for the idea.
"These thousands of the Taliban that we are trying to address and reintegrate are ideologically not against us. They are countryside boys who don't hate the United States…(and) we must try legitimately to return them."
"Reintegration means the return back home…of those thousands of Taliban soldiers who have been driven out of their homes and their country by circumstances beyond our reach or control and beyond theirs," he said.
"Reconciliation" or negotiation with the Taliban leadership, is a separate and more complex issue, he said.
Speaking on the same occasion, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said certain conditions must be met before reconciliation can occur.
"People can not just show up and say that they are prepared to re-enter Afghan society after having directed suicide attacks and other kinds of violence against Afghanistan," she said.
"This process really starts with the re-integration…of people who for a variety of reasons found themselves in the ranks of the Taliban."
And any talk of "reconciliation" would require much thinking about what exactly the term means, she said.
From Clinton's perspective, all Taliban seeking "reintegration" or "reconciliation" must abide by the laws and the constitution of Afghanistan, and that includes cutting ties with Al Qaeda and respecting women's rights, she said.
"I don't think any of us can predict what the outcome of the next phase will be. First the president (Karzai) has to have his own consultative peace jirga and listen to his own people because they may have very strong opinions," she said.
There are also Afghan Taliban leaders who do not want to reconcile, she said. "We don't expect to see, you know, them walking through the door."
For now, many senior Taliban leaders are still on a UN list of terrorists who are precluded from being invited to negotiation, although some UN officials have called for the removal of some members off that list.
Another problem is some insurgents' belief that their side is winning, and that gives them little incentive to come to the negotiation table, some critics argue.
Challenges also loom concerning the handover of security duties to Afghan forces by the expected deadline of July of next year decided by the Obama administration.
"We wasted seven or eight years of not developing a very strong security force in Afghanistan," said Scott Payne, senior policy advisor at Third Way think tank. "It will probably be more of a three to five year time frame before we see a highly functional security force in Afghanistan."
Still, the civil working relationship seen this week will help, although the Obama administration may ask for more in some areas than Karzai is willing to give, he said.
"The U.S. seems intent on strengthening local governance capabilities even if those individuals aren't tightly connected to Kabul. Karzai doesn't seem interested in creating other power centers," he said.
-- Xinhua