The Istanbul Summit on the Afghan Peace Process, due to be held April 24, has been postponed until after the month of Ramzan which ends on or about 12th May. This will allow more time to persuade the Taliban, who declined to participate, to attend. Their presence is important because the summit probably represents the final chance to reach an Afghan settlement before NATO forces leave 11th September.
There has been some criticism by academics in recent years that the Taliban were not invited to the famous Bonn conference in December 2001, but that is taking hindsight to extreme lengths. There is no way that the United States would have accepted their presence in Bonn only a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks which the Taliban (as Al Qa’ida’s hosts in Afghanistan) should have prevented.
However, the Taliban ought to have been reconciled with the Kabul government sometime between late 2001 and the summer of 2006 when the International Security Assistance Force ‘phase 3’ plan was implemented in southern Afghanistan with NATO countries opening ‘Provincial Reconstruction Teams’ in Kandahar province (Canadians), Helmand (British), Uruzgan (Dutch) and Zabul (Americans). This was the disastrous moment when a resurgent Taliban found its provinces being apparently ‘taken over’ by Western troops and aid workers. This was also when NATO, with its mission to degrade Al Qa’ida, suddenly found itself fighting the wrong enemy. For all their medievalist brutality, the Taliban have never been international jihadists; they are radicalised Afghan tribesmen who have a rightful place in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
So, the main objective of the Istanbul summit should be to decide how to reintegrate the Taliban into Afghan civil society. However, the Taliban want more than this; they wish to return to power in Kabul, a role for which they are demonstrably not yet ready. Instead, the aim must be somehow to integrate them into government whilst keeping them out of Kabul until there is sufficient confidence that they will not try to seize power and brutalise the population as they did between 1996 and 2001.
One option would be to let them govern a province in the south. Helmand would be the ideal option given the Taliban’s success in stifling the opium industry there in the late 1990s. However, they are likely to settle for nothing less than Kandahar, which they regard as their capital.
Even as part of a glide-path towards a share of government in (say) five years, the Taliban would never accept such a proposal. This is where Turkey and Pakistan have such a crucial role to play. Between them, Turkey’s President Erdogan and Pakistan’s General Bajwa have the credibility (Erdogan) and the power (Bajwa) to oblige the Taliban to enter into this sort of negotiation.
This is somewhat reminiscent of how Samora Machel of Mozambique insisted that a reluctant Robert Mugabe and his ZANLA guerrillas (which operated from Mozambican territory) should enter into the Lancaster House negotiations on the future of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Mugabe was not pleased but he had little alternative. In Zimbabwe the guerrilla forces were eventually integrated with the former Rhodesian army, which would be an ideal outcome in Afghanistan.
Bajwa would be reluctant to expend much political capital on applying such pressure to the Taliban and that is where the United States will have a key role to play. Pakistan is reluctant to become entirely dependent on China and some in the military leadership recognise that an unfettered Taliban in power in Kabul would be impossible to control. As Pashtuns they might also make common cause with discontented Pashtuns inside Pakistan. A carefully crafted package of political and economic measures by the US could bring Pakistan round at a time when it is already beginning to show some hesitant diplomatic flexibility with India under the mediation of the UAE.
All the other attendees at Istanbul wish to see a peaceful Afghanistan and might be expected to support such a plan. China has some commercial interests in the country but, above all, wishes to ensure that Uighur militants cannot use it for training and refuge. Russia and the Central Asian Republics worry about the narcotics trade and Taliban contacts with their own Islamists. Iran wants to ensure that the Hazara Shia minority is protected from persecution.
India will be the least willing to see the Taliban play any role in the future of Afghanistan but will realise that President Ghani’s government might not survive long unless the Taliban are bound into an agreement. Hitherto few of these countries have had any wish to assist the United States out of its predicament but post-US withdrawal they are facing a new and more dangerous situation.
It would take some masterly diplomacy to pull off a last-gasp settlement in Afghanistan and it would need China, Russia and Iran to commit to it at a time when relations with the United States are seriously strained. Furthermore, it would need some countries to act as guardians of the deal, perhaps under United Nations auspices, to ensure that neither the Taliban nor the Kabul government renege on the terms. Ideally there would be a force of peacekeepers from predominantly Muslim countries. That too would be no small task to agree and assemble.
Tim Willasey-Wilsey is a visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and a former senior British diplomat.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not represent those of any institution.
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Further reading:
Background on the Istanbul summit: https://www.dailysabah.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistan-afghanistan-put-hope-in-istanbul-meeting-for-peace-talks
For the news on its postponement see https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/afghanistan-peace-talks-in-istanbul-postponed-says-fm-cavusoglu-164109
For details on the NATO phase 3 roll-out in 2006 see https://www.nato.int/isaf/placemats_archive/2008-02-06-ISAF-Placemat.pdf
For the Machel’s help in bringing Mugabe to the negotiating table see Margaret Thatcher’s ‘The Downing Street Years’ page 77. London; Harper Collins, 1993.
For some thoughtful comments on Bonn see https://www.mei.edu/publications/what-went-wrong-after-bonn
For this author’s commentary on the Blinken Plan and the US withdrawal see https://www.thecipherbrief.com/how-can-blinkens-bold-plan-for-afghanistan-succeed and https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/afghanistan/afghanistan-how-six-good-reasons-can-still-lead-to-a-bad-decision