Khawaja Asif urges US to open dialogue with Taliban for peace in Afghanistan

[Insight]

Khawaja Asif urges US to open dialogue with Taliban for peace in Afghanistan

By News Desk
Published: September 17, 2017


Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif has urged the Trump administration to hold dialogues with the Taliban to bring peace in Afghanistan.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in Islamabad, the foreign minister observed that the United States’s “militaristic approach” represented a failed policy in the war-torn country.
Peace-talks, he said, could be arranged if Washington agreed to work with regional countries that have influence over the militant group. The current four-country nexus consisting of Pakistan, China, US and Afghanistan could be expanded to include those with influence over Taliban, he added.
Afghan Taliban are US and Afghanistan’s problem, not ours: Khawaja Asif
Asif also said he would stress to the members of the United Nations that peaceful solution to the region, not force will resolve the conflict.
Earlier this month, the foreign ministry hinted at bringing a ‘paradigm shift’ in its foreign policy in view of the fast-changing situation on regional and international fronts, particularly after the new US strategy on Afghanistan and South Asia.
The federal minister also said the change was necessitated by recent developments “which are perhaps the biggest since the World War II”.
While he said Islamabad was not seeking confrontation with the US, he made it clear that relations with Washington would now be driven by Pakistan’s national interests.

[Insight]

Pakistan Rallies Against U.S. Plan in Afghanistan - WSJ
Full interview is here. If anyone can post the full WSJ article please. There is a pay wall.

[Elite Pakhtun]

Not the biggest fan of this guy. He turned down 2 meetings with US officials.

Like wtf is his job? Is he taking advice from the pdf mashooman?

The first drone strike in almost a year took place recently. I believe if he showed some level of diplomacy, instead of knee jerk reactions, that could've been avoided, and potential for better relationship with the US could be taking place as we speak.

[maneatinglizard]

Remember in 2015 when Pakistan initiated the Murree Talks? The Taliban rejected them as "enemy propaganda" and embarrassed Pakistan.

Then in 2016 they went as far as threatening the families of the Taliban as leverage to get them to join the peace talks, but the Taliban shut them down again and made them look like fools.

Pakistan has much less influence over the Taliban than Afghanistan, the US, or even Pakistan would have you believe. And it's only gotten worse with Pakistan's public attempts at strong-arming the Taliban into doing their bidding, as well as their massacres in FATA. If Pakistan truly was involved in Mullah Akhtar Mansour's assassination, I doubt the Taliban will trust them again.

Constant duplicity has destroyed Pakistan's relations just about everyone. The leadership probably felt so smart conning everyone that would talk to them. Too bad all they accomplished was making a bunch of enemies and hurt their already lacking international prestige, with nothing to show for it. They tried to play the long con but bungled it massively lol.

Don't forget there's a lot of propaganda at play in this war. The US specifically and overtly funds VoA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Azadi, and Radio Mashaal among others for propaganda, and it's well known that the Afghan and Pakistani media are often used by their governments to spread misinformation.

The recent blasphemous leaflets provided one look into the American propaganda machine, and news stories mentioned another example along with it. It turns out the US was distributing Eid Mubarak leaflets in south/east Afghanistan with Mullah Omar's picture on them, in an attempt to confuse people into thinking he may be alive, so that they might question the current Taliban leadership. The constant rumors of peace talks and dissent within the Taliban leadership falls in line with this type of misinformation campaign. One only has to look at how strong and united they've been recently to see how true those claims were.

[maneatinglizard]

“If the US doesn’t trust us, it should repatriate Afghan immigrants in Pakistan itself,” he told reporters in Sialkot.

“Pakistan has managed to cleanse its land from terrorism,” he maintained.

Pakistan is the only country that is on the verge of defeating the menace of terrorism.

Now I can see where those crazy Pakistani nationalists get their talking points from. Does anyone outside of the delusional bubble of Pakistani ultra-nationalism take this garbage seriously?

We have tried to make the Pak-Afghan border secure but s stretch of around 650 kilometres has not been fenced by Afghanistan,” he noted.

Seems like ultra-nationalism is the same stupid disease wherever it exists. All this talk about a wall is exactly the same rhetoric spouted by Trump and his supporters here in the US. I'm just waiting for some Pakistanis to begin demanding that Afghanistan pays for the wall. For the border it doesn't even recognize lol.

While he said Islamabad was not seeking confrontation with the US, he made it clear that relations with Washington would now be driven by Pakistan’s national interests.

And what were they driven by before? Altruism? lol

[maneatinglizard]

Not the biggest fan of this guy. He turned down 2 meetings with US officials.

Like wtf is his job? Is he taking advice from the pdf mashooman?

The first drone strike in almost a year took place recently. I believe if he showed some level of diplomacy, instead of knee jerk reactions, that could've been avoided, and potential for better relationship with the US could be taking place as we speak.

I doubt the drone strikes bother people like him. Most likely they're not only fully aware of them, but are being paid by the US for their quiet acceptance, and Pakistan has shown time and again that they don't care what happens to the areas being afflicted with the drone attacks.

Standard Pakistan two-facedness at play here. Publicly condemn the drone attacks as a violation of their sovereignty while quietly hoping the US takes out a few thorns in Pakistan's side, and collecting a few bills along the way.