Pak role in Afghan peace, development vital: Mosazai

ISLAMABAD: All eyes in the region are on Delhi where the Afghan National Security Adviser Hanif Atmar will be meeting with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval, and this encounter is being seen as a very significant meeting after a thaw in relations ever since President Ashraf Ghani took office.
Atmar will be accompanied by Hekmat Karzai, deputy foreign minister, in the first attempt where Kabul now wants to re-engage with New Delhi.
According to reports, after the signing of a strategic partnership agreement in 2012, India is expected to provide Kabul with four MI 25 attack helicopters, while previously New Delhi had been reluctant from providing any defence equipment.
However, in Islamabad, the highly respected Afghan Ambassador Janan Mosazai echoed a statement from President Ashraf Ghani who said that Pakistan was not only important for Afghanistan but rather “vital” for peace and development.
“Pakistan is ‘closer’ to us than all of Afghan’s neighbours,” Mosazai pointed out while speaking at the inaugural session of a conference, Beyond Boundaries, as part of efforts to improve relations between the two neighbours.
Despite a low in relations, Mosazai said this did not mean that there had been breakdown in our relations.
“We have maintained a high level of strategic dialogue where I am in touch with the Foreign Office and the security establishment here. President Ashraf Ghani too has been in touch by telephone with the political and military leadership here. We pick the phone and talk,” he said in an optimistic tone. This is the initiative of the Centre of Research and Security Studies (CRSS) - in partnership with its Afghan counterpart DURAN Research and Analysis (DRA).
While once again Pak-Afghan relations are seeing a low in bilateral relations, Mosazai was heard with rapt attention as he stressed that the “natural affinity” between the two sides will rescue relations in the future. He said he was hopeful because when the two sides sat across the table they do work towards solutions.
“But unfortunately we have failed to converge these points of convergence from words into action,” he said.
According to a statement from the CRSS, Mosazai also underpinned the need to build on the commonalities that exist between the two nations.
“It is critically important to advance the goals of mutual cooperation at state to state level. Enhancing people to people relations is not a side priority but a core priority of relations with Pakistan,” said Ambassador Mosazai, adding that the civil society in Afghanistan could become an extremely important stakeholder in improving relations.
A rather disappointing presentation was that of Khurram Dastagir, Federal Minister for Commerce, who should have come prepared with some fresh points of his government but rather he repeated what he has said many times before in the past. While stressing the need for more cabinet ministers from Pakistan to visit Kabul to witness first hand views of the people of Afghanistan, Dastagir had to face the bitter truth when he landed there.
“It took me a while to reckon the hostility and mistrust in the Afghan media against Pakistan. Ironically many Afghans look at us the same way we look at India.”
He was correct when he said that the crossing of the Pak-Afghan border by thousands of Afghans every day and the presence of thousands of Afghan refugees here has done little to lessen the mistrust.
However, the minister fell short on giving concrete recommendations of how his government was going to tackle this mistrust.
Support to facilitate Monday’s conference came from the UK with British High Commissioner Philip Barton hoping that such meetings would build understanding and trust (between Pakistan and Afghanistan) by challenging misconceptions and identifying opportunities to move the relationship forward.
“Healthy relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are vital for stability, security and prosperity of the two countries, the region and the world. Peace processes are never easy, but in the end, dialogue is the only route to peace,” he added giving examples how he was witness in bringing peace between UK and Ireland where the IRA was given a place at the table, adding that “dialogue is always important and this is the best time for track II intervention.”
Imtiaz Gul, Executive Director of CRRS, termed that track II initiative a way forward for lessening tensions.
“Recognising ground realities governing bilateral relations between the two countries can be conducive to peace talks,” said Gul, while adding that both the working groups were not there to settle the scores but to detox the narratives.