As the new government in Pakistan under Imran Khan, completes one month in office on the 18th of this month, the visit to Kabul by the Pakistan foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi drew considerable attention from several quarters as Pak- Afghan relations were under severe strain in not so distant past. Qureshi's significant visit last weekend was marked by detailed confabulations with Pakistan Foreign Minister's counterpart, Salahuddin Rabbani as also with the Afghan President Ashraful Ghani amongst other key leaders.
Qureshi recent visit to Kabul assumes significance especially because it is the first overseas visit by any Pakistani leader after taking office a month ago. Also , Ashraful Ghani is slated to visit India shortly to hold wide ranging talks with Prime Minister Modi and also expected to address a couple of think tanks on major issues of security concern. So talking to Pakistan preceding the India visit merits a close watch particularly to study the prevailing security scenario.
In Kabul, Pakistan, inter alia, offered to provide extensive training to the Afghan police and security personnel. Training police force is very generic but reading between the lines security personnel may perhaps mean training the intelligence arm of the Afghan establishment.
However, it is not yet clear if Afghan intelligence wing will at all be trained by Pakistan. If affirmative, then by all probability, the trainers are most likely to be the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) who are not above suspicion chiefly on two counts.
One, they are likely to indoctrinate the Afghan intelligence from coming close to Indian security agencies as Pakistan is apprehensive about Afghanistan forging a vigorous security cooperation with India . Two, Pakistan may push its own agenda in supporting terror on the Afghanistan soil to keep the country on tenterhooks and to make the country more dependent on Pakistan. Such opportunities are fraught with calculated risk and call for abundant caution.
Other than training programs, visiting Pakistan side also discussed issues on Joint Economic Commission (JEC) between the two countries as well as on matters relevant to Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Authority (APTTCA). Other than these, both sides dwelt on the proposal of a trilateral cooperation between Pakistan, China and Afghanistan.
Pakistan attempts to woo Afghanistan were also noticed in terms of granting of 3000 scholarships to Afghan students to pursue studies in Pakistan. Further, Pakistan has decided to waive off the Regulatory Duty on imports from Afghanistan.
As a token of goodwill gesture, several thousand tons of wheat were gifted to Afghanistan to ensure that Afghanistan remains in the Pakistan camp. Clearly, it appears an ISI game plan to keep Afghanistan under its thumb as part of the ongoing military plans to dictate Imran Khan's foreign policy by proxy.
Security analysts perceive that Foreign Minister Qureshi's Kabul visit was apparent by display of what they describe a robust diplomatic activity by Pakistan to keep Afghanistan in the right side and possibly to wean it away from the so called sway of India . It is interesting to note that Pakistan is pleading for reopening of its consulate in Jalalabad. If that is acceded to, there is a strong possibility of renewal of covert activities emanating from Jalalabad.
Whatever transpired between Afghanistan and Pakistan on this visit, the priority task at hand for both the countries is to jointly address the Taliban and IS sponsored terror threats, as noticed on ground by blasts occurring at regular intervals threatening peace in the region.
The writer is a security analyst, a commentator and a columnist
on topical security issues.
Views are personal
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