A elderlyInter-Services Intelligence (ISI) functionary lately travelled to Turkey to convey to Afghan political leaders an offer from Pakistan to host them for addresses with the Taliban, people familiar with the matter said The ISI functionary, who was in Turkey during December, was in contact directly with several Afghan leaders, including former ministers, or with their helpers to convey the offer from Islamabad. Significantly, utmost of the leaders communicated by the intelligence operative are perceived to beanti-Taliban or friendly towards India.
Among the leaders the ISI functionary reached out to were Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, former foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rashid Dostum, the people cited over said. It wasn’t incontinently clear how the Afghan leaders, who view the Pakistani leadership with deep dubitation, responded to the preamble from Islamabad Sayyaf, believed to be in hismid-70s, moved to New Delhi following the fall of the Ashraf Ghani government and the preemption of Kabul by the Taliban inmid-August 2021. He left India for Turkey only last month as he believed further could be done to forge ananti-Taliban movement by networking with other Afghan leaders formerly in that country Dostum is perceived as a crucial player in sweats to put together a government-in- exile or to produce a resistance force in Afghanistan.
The fresh move by Pakistan appears to be aimed at fully shutting out India as a player in Afghanistan, the people cited over said. After an hiatus of several months following the Taliban preemption, the Indian side lately proceeded connections with rudiments from the former government of Ashraf Ghani and other political leaders who fled Afghanistan, the people added Pakistan’s foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi has been criticised by Afghan politicians for acting like “ Afghanistan’s foreign minister” by championing on behalf of the Taliban setup, which is yet to be formally recognised by any country.
The move by Pakistan also came ahead of a visit this month by Taliban acting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi to Iran, where he met Ahmad Massoud, who heads the National Resistance Front (NRF), and former minister Ismail Khan and prompted them to end their resistance and return to Afghanistan. Muttaqi has said he assured the Afghan leaders that they could “ come back to live freely and safely in Afghanistan”. “ Easily, the Taliban want to shut down any form of resistance and their backers in Pakistan are seeking to bolster these sweats,” one of the people cited over said.
Sameer Patil, elderly fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, said the trouble by the ISI shows “ who is the real motorist in shaping political developments in Afghanistanpost-August 2021 This appears to be a response to the transnational review that the Taliban’s interim press isn’t inclusive and did n’t have representation from other Afghan coalitions. This is an trouble to suss out a response from the other coalitions on how amenable they’re to cooperate with the Taliban,” Patil said.
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