Islamabad : In a sign that Afghanistan is rethinking its outreach efforts to Pakistan, President Ashraf Ghani has demanded that Islamabad end its longstanding support for the Afghan Taliban.
In a letter to Pakistani civilian and military leaders, Ghani has requested specific steps to end the Taliban’s sanctuary in their country and help in addressing their violent campaign inside Afghanistan.
Sources at the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul have confirmed that Ghani wrote a letter to Pakistani leaders this week asking them to prove their sincerity in backing the Afghan peace process by taking seven steps in the next three weeks.
“Islamabad should issue an official declaration condemning the launch of the Taliban (spring) offensive,” an Afghan official familiar with the letter told RFE/RL’s Gandhara website on Saturday.
Pakistan should “extend counter-terrorism operations to the Haqqani network and arrest those responsible for the recent terrorist activities inside Afghanistan”, the official said.
In one of the most revealing demands, Ghani has asked Pakistan’s military leadership to issue a “directive” to deny sanctuary to the Afghan Taliban.
For the past 14 years, Kabul and its Western allies have accused the Pakistani military of turning a blind eye or even supporting the remnants of the Afghan Taliban regime hiding in and operating from Pakistan.
Another major demand included “placing Quetta and Peshawar shura (the Taliban leadership council) members under house arrest and initiating legal proceedings against them for threatening security of friendly states”, said the official, who requested anonymity.
He said Ghani has also asked Islamabad to agree to an exchange of prisoners, deny Taliban combatants medical treatment inside Pakistan, and limit the sale of fertilisers and electrical switches that can be used in detonating improvised explosive devices (IEDs) — a common killer of Afghan troops and civilians.
The letter was a marked turnaround for the Afghan leader, who made cultivating a cooperative, bilateral relationship with Pakistan one of his key foreign policy initiatives — and a way of ending his country’s decades-old war — after assuming office in September.
During the past seven months, Ghani has worked hard to improve relations between the two neighbours from what he termed “undeclared hostilities” by clandestinely nudging insurgents toward friendship by invoking regional cooperation and trust between the two nations.
To address Pakistani suspicions, he has toned down Afghanistan’s traditional alliance with India and even attempted unprecedented security cooperation with Islamabad despite facing a crescendo of domestic opposition.
Pakistani civilian and military leaders, however, have made pragmatic statements. Afghan officials were elated when Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, declared that the “enemies of Afghanistan are enemies of Pakistan” during a visit to Kabul in February.
But their hopes of seeing decisive action against the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan were dashed when the insurgents announced their spring offensive on April 24.
With the start of the Taliban “Azm” (determination) campaign, insecurity rapidly increased as the Taliban turned to more conventional tactics in an effort to control territory.