Pakistan Urges Taliban to Stay Engaged with Afghanistan’s Peace Process

The U.S.’s future exit from Afghanistan has raised concerns about the potential for destructive Taliban activities (Wikimedia Commons).

Pakistan has requested that the Taliban remain involved in Afghanistan’s peace process after the militant group declared that it would not participate in any multilateral summits until all foreign forces leave the country. The Taliban decision came just after U.S. President Joe Biden’s declaration that all American troops would withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, pushing back the original May 1 deadline stated by  former president Donald Trump’s administration. 

The Taliban, often referred to as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), are a Sunni Islamist movement and military organization in Afghanistan currently waging an insurgency within that country. Between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban controlled three quarters of Afghanistan and imposed strict Sharia law. The Taliban has fiercely condemned the international community for allegedly harassing Afghan citizens, including women and children. Nevertheless, the U.S. 2001 invasion successfully limited the Taliban to within Afghanistan’s borders. 

The U.S.’s withdrawal announcement has plunged the peace process involving the Taliban into uncertainty, as many fear that the U.S.’s exit could mean Taliban power returning to pre-2001 levels. Pakistan Foreign Affairs Minister Shah Mahmood Quereshi told Reuters  that if the peace process remains in deadlock, the Taliban’s could “get out of hand.”  This could provoke a civil war in Afghanistan with the potential for an enormous death toll and mass displacements. 

Pakistan itself holds lots of influence over the Taliban, with the country facilitating the U.S.-Taliban negotiations that led to this decision to withdraw American. Suspicions surrounding  Pakistan’s involvement in the peace process, however, remain. U.S. and Afghan officials claim that Pakistan provides Taliban insurgents with a safe haven as well as with information from their intelligence service. 

Soon after Pakistan’s request to the Taliban to stay engaged in the process, foreign ministers from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Turkey met in Istanbul on August 24. In a joint statement, they requested that the Taliban commit to a “negotiated settlement.”

In addition to Pakistan, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu declared that Ankara would provide continued support to the Afghan peace process. Recent reports, however, have suggested that the Taliban, in return for attending the conference, could ask for the release of top leaders from the ban list of the United Nations.