Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and prospects for peace with the Taliban

Mehlaqa Samdani

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are deemed integral to reconciliation talks with the Taliban leadership.  However, there are limits to what the two countries are willing and able to achieve with respect to negotiations with the Afghan Taliban.

Since Karzai's official announcement to reach out to the Taliban at the London Summit last month, the Saudis have been somewhat lukewarm in their response to Karzai's request to "woo the Taliban leadership into peace talks".  Rather than offer "trust building concessions to the Taliban leadership", the Saudis have called on them to surrender Osama bib Laden and have so far only offered assistance to Karzai with regard to the reintegration of low-level fighters. 

According to Mustafa Alani, head of the Gulf Research Center, several reasons may explain Saudi Arabia's apparent reluctance in getting involved to assist the Karzai government: first, the Saudis have reservations about Karzai's credibility as he “came from Washington on the back of occupation tanks.” Also, despite the fact that the Saudis pledged $150 million for Afghanistan "there are concerns that the money would be diverted from development by corrupt members of the Karzai government".  Others believe the Kingdom is not too eager to assist a regime that "is operating on the basis of a secular government".

However, what the Saudis might really be smarting from are previous unsuccessful attempts at luring top Taliban leaders.  According to reports, the Saudis, urged by the United States, attempted back channel talks with the Taliban leadership as early as 2007. According to a veteran Arab journalist, Jamal Ismail, "Prince Bandar bin Sultan [a former Saudi ambassador to the US] quietly came to Pakistan and the then [Pervez] Musharraf administration arranged for him to travel to Miranshah [the tribal headquarters of North Waziristan in Pakistan] and aimed to see  Osama bin Laden or Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri. However, only Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a middle-ranking al-Qaeda leader, came to see him" Despite the initial snub, the Taliban leadership through Mullah Baradar engaged with the Saudis by conducting talks with Saudi intelligence chief, Muqrin. These talks came to an abrupt halt when in "mid-2009, Prince Muqrin was told point-blank that Mullah Omar decided to discontinue all negotiations (since)...took it as an affront that on the one hand Washington aimed to engage the Taliban through Saudi Arabia...while on the other hand it planned to continue all efforts to defeat the Taliban" through its troop surge and drone strikes.

With the Saudis stalling on mediation efforts, it will perhaps fall on the Pakistani government to leverage the fluctuating influence it has exercised over the Afghan Taliban groups (see previous posting)  Last week, Pakistan's COAS Kayani expressed Pakistan's interest in "prevent(ing) an outbreak of instability" in "a post-American and post-ISAF Afghanistan". According to experts, Kayani's "message to Karzai is: if you become our ally (because strategic depth really calls for an alliance, not just friendship) and ditch India, we can help keep you alive and in power.  And, it seems as if there’s an implicit message to the Afghan Taliban ...you are not our only option, so don’t take us for granted". While "Kayani’s doctrine is not
revolutionary...it is demonstrating great flexibility in terms of choice of alliances"

Meanwhile, the Pakistani military is continuing operations of varying degrees in nearly all tribal agencies except North Waziristan where the top Afghan Taliban leadership is believed to be hiding. It remains to be seen what impact Kayani's words will have on either Karzai or the Afghan Taliban.

One group that does seem to be making some headway with both Karzai and the Taliban leadership consists of four ex-Taliban leaders "who occupied prominent positions in the Taliban regime until it was overthrown by the U.S. military intervention in 2001". The team has encouraged both parties to start with
"military de-escalation and confidence-building before proceeding to the central political-military issues that must be negotiated". 

As a first step in their proposal, which they have sent to the all major stakeholders (Karzai, Taliban, US and NATO), the four have suggested "an agreement between Karzai and the Taliban about no killing of doctors and no damage to roads, etc [by the Taliban], in return for no night raids and detention [by the United States"

Karzai seemed to be listening when "he told al Jazeera in January that he would seek an end to nighttime raids on Afghan homes as well as the arrest and detention of Afghans on suspicion of belonging to the Taliban"

The mediation team claims they "do not expect the al Qaeda issue to be difficult to resolve...as..the Taliban statement of Dec. 4 offering to negotiate "legal guarantees" against "meddling" beyond Afghanistan's borders was a signal that the Taliban leadership is prepared to renounce ties with al Qaeda under a peace agreement". Similarly, based on his discussions with Taliban's leadership, the team leader and one of the earliest members of the Taliban movement, Mullah Zaeef, believes that with respect to the Afghan constitution, the Taliban will "demand changes in a few articles, not the whole thing".

On the subject, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of Hizb-e-Islami, has suggested a "temporary government to ensure that a new constitution is written with the participation of "all parties".

While appearing to be pliant behind the scenes, the Taliban continue to exude defiance in their public statments. On their website on Thursday, they posted a statement entitled: "The impractible decision of the London conference", which read:

"During the past eight years, the Islamic Emirate has not shown any willingness to reach collusion with any party as regards the Jihad, the country and the people, national and Islamic interest" and "it is not ready to have any illegitimate, valueless deal about the victory, which is near at hand."
 

Flickr photo by pixelviz used under a Creative Commons license.