The US Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was in Delhi on Tuesday to brief the Indian top brass even as the formal peace talks in Doha is under way with the negotiating team, appointed by the Afghan government, sitting across the Taliban for the first time.
This is the second in-person visit by Khalilzad to India in the past few months. He had visited Pakistan on Monday. During his India visit, he is expected to call on External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval.
In May, when Khalilzad chose to stop by—before his Pakistan visit—it was more than just to keep the balance and acknowledge India's importance to the US as a future stakeholder in the new Afghanistan. It was also to deliver a message—best received in person—that India would need to bite the bullet and talk to the Taliban. “India is an important force in Afghanistan and it would be appropriate for that (India-Taliban) engagement to take place,” he had said in an interview to The Hindu.
It appears that the message has been received. Jaishankar's virtual presence on the first day of the Doha dialogue and his address is a signal that India has shifted positions. The presence MEA’s joint secretary for Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran division, J.P. Singh, at the Doha conference indicated that the South Block is taking into account the new reality on the ground— that the Taliban will no longer be out of the government in Kabul, but a part of it. Jaishankar had emphasised that the peace process must be “Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled”, and that there is a need to “respect national sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan” and “promote human rights and democracy”. India had so far resisted being in the room with the Taliban especially as the Afghan government had been kept out too.
The road ahead is not likely to be easy, especially as the Taliban is riding on a high. “Today the contact groups of both delegations continued the discussion on rules and procedures and prepared it to the general meeting between two negotiating team to be held tomorrow,'' member of IRA Peace Negotiation team, Nader Nadery, had tweeted. Later, another tweet from him read: “Day 4: making peace is complicated process but possible.”
The violence has not really reduced. Days before the Doha talks began, there was an attack on Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who has taken a strong stand against the Taliban. This was not the first time that Saleh has been targeted. Besides, Fawzia Koofi,who has been spearheading a campaign to keep women's rights at the centre of the dialogue, faced an attack on her life a few weeks ago.
