US, Pak hopeful Taliban will join peace dialogue
Washington, Islamabad aim to restart reconciliation process
ISLAMABAD: A top US official arrived in Pakistan on Monday for talks with the civilian and military leadership aimed at bringing the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table despite ties between Islamabad and Washington being at their lowest in several years.
Principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asia, Alice Wells, travelled to Islamabad from Kabul for what Pakistani officials described as “crucial talks to explore the possibility of resuming the Afghan reconciliation process”.
A senior state department official and President Donald Trump’s point person for the region, Wells is scheduled to meet senior officials of the Foreign Office, the military and intelligence agencies during her stay in Pakistan.
Ahead of Wells’ visit, Pakistani and Afghan officials have held several rounds of talks in which the two sides worked out a roadmap for inviting the Taliban to join the political process.
Ahead of her arrival in Islamabad, Wells said during a stopover in Kabul on Saturday that the Eid ceasefire had created an “impulse for everyone to renew their efforts to find a negotiated political solution”.
Wells also said Pakistan needs to do more to squeeze the Taliban and bring them to the negotiating table. “Pakistan has an important role to play…but we have not yet seen that sustained and decisive action on the part of Islamabad,” she said.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Saturday confirmed that Pakistan and Afghanistan had made considerable progress on how to achieve peace in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s military chief visited Afghanistan twice this year to help ease tensions between the two countries.
Pakistani officials said efforts to bring the Taliban back to the negotiating table are on the cards and both Afghanistan and the US want to reach some kind of deal with the militants before elections due later this year.
“Against this backdrop, the visit of Ambassador Wells holds great significance,” a senior Foreign Office official told a local newspaper. The unnamed official said despite recent hiccups in ties, Pakistan and the US are still working closely to find common ground on Afghanistan.
The Taliban have so far ignored Ghani’s offer of peace negotiations and have instead insisted on direct talks with the US, which Washington has refused. Wells said since the Afghan government and the US are willing to start talking without preconditions, the onus is now on the Taliban to respond.