President Hamid Karzai has set formal initiation of peace talks with Taliban as a pre-condition for signing the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States. By such an instance he might have expected the Taliban to be encouraged towards peace talks. But ironically, delay in signing the agreement seems to have given more fighting spirit to the Taliban. They are now pondering over regaining power in Afghanistan, a goal for which they have fought this last decade.

Government’s recent policies have harmed the peace process and fortified the enemies. This has been admitted by Salahuddin Rabbani, Chairman High Peace Council (HPC). He has said: ‘Those who believe they can win militarily are now more powerful than those pro-peace elements because of certain policies that our government unfortunately has lately taken, such as the delay in signing the bilateral security agreement.” Also, a large number of Taliban prisoners have been released from Afghan prisons including the Bagram Detention Facility. 

While there is much concern over the prevailing uncertainty and BSA is largely favored by Afghans, the Taliban and Hezb-e Islami have appreciated President Karzai for not signing the agreement. These are the groups that squeeze much benefit from current situation. The deadlock facing the BSA only means giving Taliban more time to plan carefully for implementing the heinous plans they have for disrupting the upcoming election and subsequent political transition. They have already launched certain deadly attacks in Kabul and other provinces of the country that have cost lives of scores of innocent people.

The current policies of the government and its soft instance towards the Taliban are actually strengthening them. According to political analysts, the insurgents will never be ready for sitting at negotiation table until they think they can go on fighting. While President Karzai has always emphasized over political solution to the Afghan conflict, he has had little focus on making environment feasible for talks. One area he must have focused on is weakening the Taliban and leaving them no option except negotiating. Making Taliban-favorite media statements and releasing insurgents from prisons instead of having a strategy to pressurize the enemy for talks offer no proper solution to the kind of conflict Afghanistan is facing. Therefore, the efforts to nudge the Taliban into peace talks have born no sweet fruit but rather have resulted in bolstering the morale of the insurgents.