Does Imran Khan really want Afghan government on board?

The row over Pakistani PM Imran Khan’s remark that a BJP-led government returning to power in India might actually foster peace between the two nations overshadowed another significant remark.

Addressing a select group of foreign journalists in Islamabad on April 9, Imran reiterated that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had opted for air strikes to please a domestic audience just ahead of the elections now underway. However, he added that Modi’s right-wing government might actually be the best possible option for settling the Kashmir conflict.

He also waxed eloquent on his resolve to rid the country of terrorists, a song sung by many of his predecessors but never implemented. However, his assertion that the elected government in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s western neighbour, must be a part of the peace process in the war-ravaged nation marked a sharp U-turn from his previous remarks. 

Earlier in April, addressing a rally in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region, Imran’s “brotherly advice” to

Afghanistan was to form an interim government to negotiate peace with the Taliban, which describes the government in Kabul as a stooge of the occupying powers and refuses to talk with it.

An outraged Afghan Foreign Ministry summoned a Pakistani envoy in Kabul and lodged a strong protest, saying the remarks smacked of interference in a sovereign and independent country.

In March, Imran had blamed the Afghan government for the failure of the peace talks being negotiated with the ultra-orthodox Taliban by the US.

In February, Kabul had formally expressed concerns over a proposed meeting between the Pakistani government and the Taliban.

New Delhi, which sees the Taliban as a Pakistan proxy, worries its long-term strategic investments in Afghanistan might be hit if the Americans “impose” a Taliban government in Kabul in their haste to leave. Imran’s remarks thus assume significance, but only if he keeps his word.