By Ankit Panda
Recent developments in the India-Afghanistan bilateral relationship suggest a major shift may be afoot.
Ever since a U.S.-brokered agreement resolved Afghanistan’s electoral dispute last year, forming an experimental National Unity Government, strategic relations between Afghanistan and India have effectively been stuck in limbo. The primary cause for this was Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s pollyannaish attempt to forge a modus vivendi with Pakistan – a break from his predecessor Hamid Karzai who, despite his mistrust of the United States in his final years at the helm, approached India with ease.
Afghanistan’s rapprochement with Pakistan was short-lived, confirming the expectations of many who suspected that Ghani would be unable to keep at bay the interests in Pakistan that have historically sought to sow instability and violence in Afghanistan. The first troubling signs were that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Ghani managed to agree to a formal counter-terrorism cooperation mechanism that would see Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security liaise with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence.
Ghani’s first mistake was trusting Pakistan’s civilian leadership to speak on behalf of the country’s military-intelligence apparatus. As has been the case throughout most of Pakistan’s history, foreign and security assurances delivered by civilian leaders are subject to the fickle whims of the country’s military establishment.
To credit Ghani, the arrangement with Pakistan was never entirely comfortable. Critical voices in Afghanistan cried foul when the arrangement for counter-terrorism cooperation was announced, but it was an attempt by the new government in Afghanistan to seek peace. After all, peace talks with the Taliban would be dead-on-arrival without Pakistan’s support.
Tragically, three months after announcing that the ISI and NDS would cooperate, in August 2015, Ghani found himself mourning the victims of devastating attacks in Kabul which claimed nearly 60 lives. The president, who had months earlier reached out to Islamabad, minced few words in response, accusing Pakistan of sending “messages of war.” He continued that the events in Kabul showed “that suicide bomber training camps and bomb-producing factories which are killing our people are as active as before in Pakistan.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat