Pakistan to Try to Mend Fences With Afghanistan

Pakistan is sending a top official to the Afghan capital this weekend to try to mend fences with its uneasy neighbor, and hanging in the balance are U.S. efforts to arrange peace talks with the Taliban.

The trip comes roughly two weeks after the Taliban closed their newly opened political office in the Gulf state of Qatar following angry complaints from Afghanistan that the Islamic militant movement had set it up as a virtual rival embassy, with a flag and sign harkening back to the days they ruled the country.

The political office was part of a U.S. plan to launch peace talks with the Taliban to end the protracted war, with American and other NATO combat troops scheduled to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of next year. But the talks ended before they could even begin amid the uproar last month.

Pakistan, which had helped persuade Taliban to agree to sit down with the Americans and possibly with the Afghans after that now contends that intransigence, suspicion and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's reluctance to invite his political opponents at home to the negotiating table in Qatar is hobbling efforts to start the talks.

"They (Taliban) listen to us. We have some influence but we can't control them," Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan's special adviser on national security and foreign affairs, told The Associated Press in advance of his trip to Kabul on Saturday.

"But they (Taliban) also say that the High Peace Council is not fully representative," Aziz said, referring to Karzai's 80-member negotiating team. "President Karzai should invite other people to join them."

Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, a senior member of the Afghan High Peace Council, told the AP that if the Taliban were making wider representation on the negotiating team a condition to restarting talks, then it "would be worth considering." But he was suspicious of Pakistan, wanting assurances first that the demand was from the Taliban and not Pakistan.

Rancor and suspicion between Pakistan and Afghanistan run deep. Kabul blames Islamabad for not cracking down on Taliban militants who use the border area as a base to carry out attacks on Afghans and international forces in Afghanistan. For its part, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of sabotaging peace efforts with its provocative statements, overtures to India and refusal to acknowledge the bloody war Islamabad is waging in its border regions.

One senior Western official, who is deeply familiar with the peace talks, said the depth of the animosity between the two countries hinders efforts to reach a negotiated peace with the Taliban.

"It's kind of a no-win situation," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "When they're (the Pakistanis) not helpful, there's a lot of suspicion (from Afghanistan) that they're being unhelpful, and when they are helpful there's a lot of suspicion that if they're helpful then maybe this isn't something that's good for Afghanistan."

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Pakistan to Try to Mend Fences With Afghanistan