Daily Times

A high level interaction between top intelligence officials of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a welcome move towards bridging the trust deficit between the two neighbouring countries. Masoud Andrabi, the head of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), met his counterpart Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Lt-General Rizwan Akhtar in Islamabad for the first time in a bid to build trust and boost intelligence sharing to combat cross-border terrorism amid efforts to revive the stalled peace process with the Taliban. Reportedly, the two-hour-long meeting was facilitated by the US, while Chinese officials attended as observers. Separately, Afghan Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Major General Habib Hisari met his Pakistani counterpart Major General Sahir Shamshad Mirza to discuss security and border management issues. These meetings are welcome as this is a long overdue cooperation process that should have been initiated much earlier keeping in view the common threat of militancy faced by both states. Unlike his predecessor former president Hamid Karzai, President Ashraf Ghani has made it a point since coming to office to reach out to Pakistan and China in an effort to find a peaceful solution to Afghanistan’s long running conflict. He believes that Pakistan’s help is necessary to persuade the Afghan Taliban to give up their armed struggle. On its part, Pakistan has made a commitment to do whatever it can to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table. Due to their own interests, the US and China too have offered their support to the peace process. It is the result of these efforts that Pakistan will host a second quadrilateral meeting on February 6 to find a roadmap to bring normalcy to Afghanistan. Earlier, the Afghan reconciliation process was suspended after the disclosure about the death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar last summer.

The formal talks between the top intelligence officials of Pakistan and Afghanistan revolved around a set of allegations and counter-allegations. Pakistan is concerned at the activities of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), who have taken refuge in Afghanistan with the Haqqani Network while Afghanistan blames Pakistan for providing sanctuaries to the Afghan Taliban, who are posing a threat to the Kabul government. Pakistan has launched a serious offensive against the militants. Through Operation Zarb-e-Azb, it has cleansed North Waziristan of the terrorists but they have not been completely eliminated. Rather the TTP militants have fled into Afghanistan and are carrying out terrorist activities inside Pakistan from there. These are the circumstances that have made Pakistan and Afghanistan interdependent. The recent meetings of the DGMOs and spy chiefs of both countries show that the level of trust is improving due to the mutual convergence of interests. It is hoped that the process will go ahead and a solution might be found to end this years-long bloodshed in Afghanistan that has also endangered regional peace. *