international endorsement of the Doha agreement between the US and the Afghan

Taliban.
On March 10 the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution welcoming
the US- Taliban agreement as a significant step “towards ending the war and
opening the door to intra- Afghan negotiations”
it conferred international legitimacy on the agreement signed in Qatar on Feb 29.
rival inauguration ceremonies of the Afghan president on March 9 . serious questions
about the future of the peace process
limits of the Doha agreement.
its purposively vague nature in some respects and the obvious fact that it excluded
the Afghan government with whom Washington signed a separate declaration.

crux
Washington’s commitment to a total but phased withdrawal in return for the
Taliban’s commitment to prevent Afghanistan’s soil from being used by terrorists
and agreeing to intra-Afghan talks.
intra-Afghan talks to begin on March 10 and assumes their progress but does not
indicate when they are to conclude.
for President Donald Trump the agreement to bring troops driven by domestic
political calculations rather than any strategic thinking. his determination to pull out
of Afghanistan appears to have priority over whether the negotiating process is able
to yield enduring peace.

“Countries,” he said after the Doha deal, “have to take care of themselves. You can
only hold someone’s hand for so long.”
For Pakistan it is imperative to accurately anticipate the likely scenarios that may
evolve and be ready with a whole-of-government approach to respond to them
This exercise should neither be guided by wishful nor short-term thinking.
All this serves as a telling reminder that winning the peace is always much harder
than waging war.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has warned that a hasty international withdrawal from
Afghanistan would be "unwise" and cautioned against setting unrealistic timelines.
The talks were to originally start on March 10 following the US-Taliban agreement,
but disputes over prisoners’ release kept them delaying. The release of the final
batch of six "dangerous" Taliban prisoners and their transfer to Qatar paved the way
for the negotiation teams to begin their talks
Progress could be slow and painstaking; there may even be the occasional deadlock,
as Afghans work together for their future. At such times, we would do well to
remember that a bloodless.
Deadlock on the negotiating table is infinitely better than a bloody stalemate on the
battlefield
conflict had taught two lessons
First, that we were too closely intertwined with Afghanistan by geography, culture
and kinship, Pakistan will not know real peace until our Afghan brothers and sisters
are at peace.
We also learned that peace and political stability in Afghanistan could not be
imposed from the outside through the use of force.

Only an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led reconciliation process, which recognises

Afghanistan’s political realities and diversity, could produce a lasting peace .
American troops are supposed to reduce to 8,600 by this summer.
Under the Doha agreement both sides had to release a specific number of detainees
in their custody — 5,000 held by Kabul and 1,000 in Taliban custody.

machination by Ghani to drag out the whole process also enlist certain regional
powers who have little interest in seeing the Doha process succeed. One regional
state is in fact seeking a parallel peace process.
The Taliban have continued to argue that any ceasefire has to be a part and not a
precursor to intra-Afghan negotiations

On Kashmir, Pakistan needs a strategic approach and a sustained diplomatic

campaign — not an on-off approach.
top American officials have been engaged in another round of shuttle diplomacy to
get intra-Afghan talks off the ground.
The withdrawal of US forces as envisaged under the Feb 29 US-Taliban agreement
is proceeding ahead of schedule

However, under immense pressure from the Americans Ghani was urged to call a
Loya Jirga to find a political cover and face-saver for the prisoner release.
Afghan government may be dragging its feet and deliberately delaying the talks until
the US presidential election

He aim may be to try, if Joe Biden wins, to persuade his administration to change
course or to at least slow down the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan

Washington’s recent announcement that by election time American troops would go

down to less than 5,000 in Afghanistan
that any delay-till-elections tactic would leave the Ghani government in an even
weaker position than it is in now
The Afghan government has already set a number of pre-negotiations ‘redlines’ for
the talks
 humanitarian’ ceasefire’
 no compromise on the democratic and human rights ‘gains
 ‘respect’ for the Republic’s constitution.
agreement on a permanent ceasefire should follow and not precede the successful
conclusion of negotiations
Afghan government’s position to preserve the republican character of the
constitution and Taliban’s insistence on declaring Afghanistan an Emirate or Sharia state.
After a protracted delay, direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban, supposed to begin
in March, finally kicked off in Qatar on Sept 12.

Abdullah Abdullah, head of the Afghan High Council for National Reconciliation
A ‘contact group’ of half a dozen negotiators from each side has been meeting daily to
work out the rules and an agenda for substantive negotiations.

the two big issues: a ceasefire and some form of transitional arrangement, the first
being a priority for Kabul and the latter for the Taliban

On a transitional government, their positions cannot be more far apart

Kabul has for now dismissed the possibility of any interim or provisional government
arguing that this is inconsistent with the constitution. The Taliban however are unlikely
to accept power sharing without a transitional political arrangement being installed.

On the constitution too, the positions of the two parties are as far apart as they can be

as an agenda item in the talks as part of the ‘political framework’ that has to be
eventually agreed, it will open it up for changes that President Ashraf Ghani is loath to
accept. The Taliban’s demand for Afghanistan to be declared an emirate or Sharia state
will obviously be resisted by Kabul, which instead insists that the country should remain
a ‘republic’ as provided by the constitution. Issues
Washington’s commitment under the US-Taliban agreement to undertake a review of
sanctions against Taliban members. Washington is also bound under explicit clauses of
the Doha accord to consult other UN Security Council members in order to delist Taliban
members from the Council’s sanctions list.

President Ghani has strong reservations on this and seems to want to use the
sanctions/delisting measures as a bargaining chip to secure a humanitarian ceasefire.

A political settlement will require tough compromises by both the Afghan government
and the Taliban.