Pak, TTP were close to a deal, claims Afghan FM

Islamabad:

Afghanistan’s caretaker foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi claimed that most of the issues between Pakistan and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had been settled and that both were close to reaching an agreement, but Islamabad backed down.

Muttaqi made these claims during a conversation with Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed in Tehran on the sidelines of the Iran-hosted Palestine conference.

Musahid, who represented Pakistan at the conference, told The Express Tribune here on Monday on his return from Tehran that he had a detailed informal discussion with Foreign Minister Muttaqi over dinner.

“I was not representing the government when I was talking to Mr. Mutaqqi,” he clarified, adding that the conversation was based on my informal interaction with the Afghan foreign minister in Tehran, whom he knew from his journalism days when he was minister of information.

The focus of the discussion was the current state of relations between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban on the issue of the banned TTP, according to Mushahid.

The Afghan foreign minister told the Pakistani politician that his country wishes to resolve all issues with Islamabad through dialogue.

Also Read: Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations — DI Khan and TTP attack

Muttaqi said that after a series of meetings between Pakistani officials and the TTP leadership, most of the issues were settled. Both sides were close to reaching an agreement brokered by the Afghan Taliban, according to Muttaqi.

The only outstanding issue was the merger of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata). TTP wanted reversal of Fata merger. However, Muttaqi claimed that Pakistan walked out of the talks and hence the impasse.

Pakistani officials, however, accused the TTP of using the talks for reconstruction.

Islamabad set clear conditions to the TTP for any deal. These include acceptance of the document of the state, adherence to the Constitution and the law, and complete disarmament. Pakistan termed the Fata merger as a red line.

Giving a sense of the interaction with Muttaqi, Mushahid said some points were noteworthy.

Read: DI Khan attack: Taliban dismiss Pakistan’s claim of involvement in Afghanistan as ‘baseless’

“First, reflecting the Afghan pysche, Mr Mutaqqi made it clear that ‘Afghanistan instinctively reacts negatively to pressure and rejects any intimidation or threat from anyone.’

He jokingly quoted an Afghan saying that “Afghans react negatively to any pressure and you can’t force an Afghan to go to Paradise under pressure”!

“Secondly, based on my conversation with Foreign Minister Mutaqqi, an important but worrying point is that there seems to be an absence of any high-level communication channel between the top leadership in Islamabad and Kabul, hence serious issues are involved in counterclaims. Blame-game and finger-pointing, which is a major setback for relations between two close neighbors with common interests,” Musahid noted.

“In other words, our most important foreign policy relationship is now reduced to a ‘dialogue of the deaf’!” As Mr. Mutaqqi told me: “please don’t overreact to incidents or accidents, as these do not stem from any policy on our part, and suddenly these accidents become a pretext for closing the borders, as cross-border trade and commerce and human movement should be decoupled from incidents or accidents’.

In a tweet, Mushahid wrote: “Wonderful meeting over dinner with Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, he is warm and positive towards Pakistan and willing to settle contentious issues through dialogue; however, in his soft-spoken, low-key style he made it clear: “Afghans may be poor, but they have pride and do not like to be pressured or threatened by anyone, as the USSR and the USA discovered to their constant regret”!