Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Stanislav Tarasov
[REGNUM] Menacing clouds began to hang over Afghanistan and Pakistan and almost direct signs of the implementation of the geopolitical scenario of the collapse of the two states appeared.
Continued from Page 2
Kabul received a "surprise" visit from a high-ranking Pakistani delegation led by Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif. He held talks with Afghan Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar Akhund, Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki, and intelligence chief Mullah Abdul Haq Wasik . The formal reason for such a visit was the decision of Kabul to close the Torkham checkpoint on the border with Pakistan.
According to Islamabad, the closure of the checkpoint "impedes trade on both sides of the border and blocks an important commercial artery and trade route from Pakistan to the countries of Central Asia."
But if it were only so, then the discussions between Islamabad and Kabul were conducted at the level of other relevant departments.
Asif, at the talks, raised questions in the plane of discussing security issues and, according to The Express Tribune, demanded from the authorities in Kabul "decisive action against terrorists threatening Pakistan without any "buts" or "ifs." He made demands to Kabul to stop supporting the so-called Pakistani Taliban.
Apparently, no longer relying on its own capabilities, Pakistan began to make efforts to internationalize this problem. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawala Bhutto Zardari said that "if the international community does not pay attention to terrorist groups operating from Afghanistan, this could become an immediate threat not only to countries neighboring Afghanistan, such as Pakistan, but also to for the West."
The problem is that since the spring-summer of 2022, new political phenomena have been gaining momentum in Afghanistan, which are beginning to determine the dynamics of military-political processes in this country, and in the region as a whole.
First: the revival and transformation of the Pakistani Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan* (TTP) organization, traditionally based in a number of eastern and southern Afghan provinces on both sides of the Durand Line (in 1893, the Afghan emir Abdur-Rahman and the British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand drew a line on the map separating the territories of British India and Afghanistan, in the present century the Afghan-Pakistani border runs along it).
The author of these lines more than once had to visit the "Durand line" in the Jalalabad region, near the Torkham border checkpoint. Outwardly, these are huge blocks of granite exposed along the conditional border, painted with white paint. If you are poorly oriented on the terrain, then it is easy to get lost and end up in someone else's territory.
Some militants and commanders of the Afghan Taliban declared their support for the TTP. For the first time in many years, they spoke about the need to "transfer jihad from Afghanistan to Pakistan", about the possibility of seizing power in this country.
Islamabad responded that it was ready to "go to war with the jihadist force." According to the Pakistani Interior Ministry, about 5,000 TTP fighters are stationed in Afghanistan on a permanent basis alone.
But now Islamabad is more concerned about the problems of forming an inclusive government in Kabul, which could include its ideological and political supporters, who will act against the TPP. It is important for him that the strife in the ranks of the Taliban does not escalate into conflicts between supporters of various groups and leaders throughout the country, which will directly affect Pakistan.
But the main feature of the situation is that the Taliban in its Afghan and Pakistani variations mainly consists of ethnic Pashtuns who hatch a geopolitical project to abolish the Islamic republics of Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to create a "Greater Pashtunistan" with the inclusion of part of the territories of these two countries.
In the event of further deterioration of the socio-economic situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the TTP, together with the Afghan Taliban, may start a full-scale war in order to dismantle the Durand Line.
The second phenomenon: the political impasse that arose as a result of the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, revealed the limited resource potentials and political opportunities of the current Kabul.
In order to change the state of affairs, the Americans began to put on the agenda the issue of an inevitable violent political coup in this country. Moreover, this project has much in common with the Pakistani one. The United States, Qatar, Pakistan and a number of other countries are already consulting on desirable combinations of reformatting the Taliban regime.
There have been reports that US Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom West is meeting and negotiating with some opposition Afghan politicians to form a new Afghan government. To do this, West uses a variety of platforms - in Turkey, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, resorting to the services of the most unexpected intermediaries. Ten ad hoc committees have already been announced to coordinate their activities in Afghanistan and "launch a new political process in Afghanistan."
The new government in Kabul, according to the Turkish government news agency Anadolu Ajansı, may appear as early as March-April 2023.
Finally, the third phenomenon: in the north of Afghanistan, the National Resistance Front (FNS),
| ...in English it’s abbreviated as NRF... |
led by Ahmad Masud, has intensified, which represents the interests of Tajiks and other non-titular ethnic groups. It is reported that Pakistan and Qatar are looking for someone who would influence the current Kabul authorities and encourage them to make peace with the Tajiks in Panjshir. The struggle for control over northern Afghanistan between the Taliban* and other radical groups is a serious security problem for the states of Central Asia. It is difficult for the predominantly ethnic Pashtun Taliban* to establish control over this region.
It is no coincidence that the former Vice President of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, reported that the Taliban could move the country's capital from Kabul to Kandahar "without any prior notice and place the Supreme Ulema Council there." According to Afghan experts, this is due to the fact that the Taliban is afraid of not retaining power in multi-ethnic Kabul.
Therefore, the appearance in Kabul of a new government formed under external pressure will mean a further complication of the political situation in the country.
By the way, the official representative of the interim government of Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid, commenting on the talks held in Kabul between former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan Markus Potzel, said that "there is no need for a national dialogue to achieve lasting peace in the country."
So in Afghanistan, a condition is formed, as in a classic arithmetic problem: from points A, B and C, three trains moved towards at once, and it is necessary to determine when, where and how they will meet.
Menacing clouds began to hang over Afghanistan and Pakistan and almost direct signs of the implementation of the geopolitical scenario of the collapse of the two states appeared. It is clear that the potential destabilization of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan will directly affect the interests of Russia, China, India and Iran, the obvious competitors of the United States in the region.
In early February, Russian President Vladimir Putin already discussed the situation in Afghanistan with representatives of the Security Councils of several countries - India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Security representatives held the fifth multilateral meeting. The fourth round of such consultations was held in Dushanbe in May last year, the third in November 2021 in New Delhi.
The SCO platform could help the region come up with a unified position on Afghanistan. Special Representative of the President of Russia for SCO Affairs Bakhtiyor Khakimov said that it was necessary "to resume the work of the SCO-Afghanistan contact group as soon as possible and start implementing the plans that had been outlined."
In turn, the special envoy of the Russian president for Afghanistan, director of the second Asian department of the Foreign Ministry, Zamir Kabulov, noted that "Russia is disappointed with the actions of the Taliban in governing Afghanistan." According to him, "Kabul has not learned how to cope with such challenges as terrorism and drugs," but "Russia does not interfere in the internal affairs of other states."
| And then his lips fell off. |
Today, there are more and more reasons to believe that the potential for regional influence on the Afghan crisis is close to being exhausted: various regional conferences and formats that have taken place recently have given virtually nothing to the Afghan settlement.
Nevertheless, Moscow again proposed the creation of a five-party G5 format for a settlement in Afghanistan. It is assumed that only India, Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia will participate in it.
| Not America, who receives the cut direct. But since the group will accomplish nothing, though the catered dinners will be lovely, this hurts less than it might otherwise. |
In the meantime, a large-scale socio-economic and humanitarian crisis is rapidly developing inside Afghanistan, and the work of government bodies has been paralyzed.
In foreign policy, the Taliban failed to achieve political recognition from the world and regional community as the new legitimate government of Afghanistan.
| Interim governments need not be recognized. Nor jihadi governments which are merely version 2.0 of conquerers nor recognized the first time round. |
As a result, according to the Afghan newspaper Hasht-e Subh, in Kabul, "relations have become so aggravated that it is possible that there is an attempt at a military coup within the Taliban."
Rumors about this coup have been functioning for a long time. They are also related to the fact that the United States, according to Afghan experts, is "actually calling on the moderate Taliban to carry out a coup and overthrow the dominance of the fundamentalist group" and that "this struggle may take an armed form."
In the meantime, the staff of the Saudi Arabian embassy has left Kabul, Pakistani diplomats are leaving, and the Chinese authorities have recommended citizens to leave Afghanistan. The Russian Embassy continues to work in an enhanced mode.
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