Within days of the US and the Taliban signing a deal to pave the way for peace in Afghanistan, things are falling apart. The deal was supposed to segue into intra-Afghan talks between the Taliban and other Afghan stakeholders – including the Afghan government – to work out a political roadmap to end the civil war in Afghanistan. But the Taliban have now said that they won’t go forward with talks unless a prisoner swap stipulated by the agreement is realised.
According to the deal, up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners are to be freed in exchange for up to 1,000 Afghan government captives by March 10. But Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has rejected that demand. After all, the deal was negotiated between the US and the Taliban with no involvement of the Afghan government. In fact, hitherto the Taliban have refused to directly talk with the Afghan government, describing the latter as illegitimate. The intra-Afghan talks were supposed to break that logjam.
Also read: US, Taliban sign historic peace deal – All you need to know
But now the Taliban is threatening to resume violence of the level that existed before the signing of the deal. To be honest, the deal was far from perfect. It’s clear that the US negotiated it from a position of weakness wanting to begin pulling out its troops before the US presidential elections later this year. The Taliban, meanwhile, gave little away – promising only to not allow Afghan soil to be used for terror activities against the US or its allies. Everything else was supposed to be fleshed out during the intra-Afghan talks. But now that cracks have started appearing in the deal, it is time to prepare for the worst.
If the Americans go ahead with their troop withdrawal schedule, Afghanistan will most likely plunge back into full-scale chaos. And that could lead eventually to the Taliban taking over Kabul. This, in turn, would restore Pakistan’s old strategic depth in Afghanistan and present an enormous challenge to India’s interests. Pakistan could then use the opportunity to direct extremist forces towards India. Therefore, New Delhi must beef up its defences while redoubling its efforts to reach out to the Taliban to protect Indian interests. Things are about to get very tough.
