Pakistani Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif will visit Kabul today in order to discuss issues pertaining to Afghanistan’s peace process with President Hamid Karzai. Sharif’ one-day visit is taking place at an important time when discussion over Afghanistan’s Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States remains to be very hot.
The Loya Jirga (grand council of tribal elders and political leaders) called by the Afghan government last week gave a green signal to the security agreement. Nevertheless, President Karzai has announced that he will not sign the agreement until after next year’s presidential election.
With such issues circulating in Kabul, the main agenda of Karzai-Sharif meeting has been said to be peace talks with Taliban. It should be mentioned here that both the leaders had met British PM, David Cameron in a trilateral summit in London last month. The main of focus of the meeting was negotiation with Taliban. It was agreed in the meeting that a delegation consisting members of High Peace Council or HPC would travel to Pakistan and meet Taliban’s former second in command Mullah Abdul Ghani Bradar. Although the delegation visited Pakistan last week, there is no confirmation it has met Bradar.
The interval between Karzai and Sharif’s meeting in London and their meeting in Kabul is quite short, hardly a month. This might mean that the interest of Pakistan in the peace process of Afghanistan is growing and it wants to speed up the process of mutual cooperation.
Pak-Afghan ties have going through serious ups and downs since the ouster of Taliban regime from power mainly because of issues related to peace and stability in Afghanistan and also because of the high level of expectation of the Afghan government from Pakistan. Despite hefty promises, the Pakistani side is yet to take more practical measures to support peace in Afghanistan. However, over the past one and a half year, there have been some noteworthy developments in cooperation between the two neighbors over peace talks.
On the request of HPC, Pakistan released a number of Taliban prisoners from its jail last year. In August, President Karzai visited Islamabad. Shortly after his visit, the Pakistani authorities said they have released Mullah Bradar, although his whereabouts remains unknown till date. Meanwhile, based on an agreement in the recent trilateral summit in London, HPC sent its delegation to Islamabad to meet Bradar. Is there more to come yet? Let’s see what comes out of Sharif’s current visit to Kabul.