Pak-Afghan ties warming up

AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai’s latest visit to Pakistan is notable for the conciliatory tone he and his host President Pervez Musharraf adopted towards one another. Contrary to their show of annoyance towards each other at most previous public events, both leaders exhibited a lot of warmth. Addressing a joint news conference on Wednesday, Karzai repeatedly called his Pakistani counterpart as “my brother” while the latter described their two countries as twins which “will gain together, will suffer together, will profit together, will lose together.” This may look like a case of verbose rhetoric but it in fact is an accurate reflection of the Pak-Afghan relations for nearly three decades now. Yet Kabul has been pointing an accusatory finger, every now and then, at Islamabad for allegedly being unhelpful in its fight against the Taliban. Afghan conflict’s devastating spillover effect into Pakistan having removed whatever justification there was for the finger pointing, Karzai felt it necessary to say that militant attacks had declined on the Afghan side and increased in Pakistan. Both he and President Musharraf also said that their intelligence agencies would cooperate more closely to deal with extremism and terrorism. Such co-operation is crucial in checking the militants’ cross-border movement. It should also put a stop to the kind of wild guessing game that the Afghan government has been playing with regard to the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders. On more occasions than one, Karzai and others have said with a great amount of confidence that Osama bin Laden is hiding in NWFP’s tribal belt and Mullah Omer in Quetta. President Musharraf and his colleagues, of course, responded with the obvious answer: ‘give us actionable intelligence or shut up.’
Wheat flour shortages, transit trade as well as bilateral trade also figured prominently in the formal talks between the two sides this time. In fact, the level of Afghan dependence on our wheat flour as well as transit trade and Pakistan’s vast economic and strategic interests in Afghanistan and the region beyond, explain the relevance of the ‘twins’ metaphor President Musharraf used to describe the bilateral relationship. Karzai also invited Pakistani businesses to invest in different ventures in his country. Lest anyone should think it too risky to invest in an embattled country, he mentioned a $3 billion agreement that a Chinese company recently signed for copper mining in Afghanistan. Actually, no country is better poised to invest in Afghanistan than the next door neighbour Pakistan. There are a number of possibilities waiting to be explored and pursued. One is the setting up of textile projects, which can prove to be particularly profitable given that cotton can be easily transported across the border to make value added products that may be marketable on preferential terms in Western countries on the basis of having originated in Afghanistan. Fruit processing and packaging facilities for export purposes are another area of lucrative prospects. Leather goods are yet another idea worth pursuing. The trick is to investigate what the feasibility of various projects might be. Needless to say, such economic linkages will help this country secure the strategic relationship that it seeks to have with Afghanistan as part of its bigger plans of building energy and transport corridors between Central Asia and the rest of the world via the deep-sea port at Gwadar. It is hoped that our investors will take a deeper look at what is possible and try to achieve it too.

 

High frustrations

IT is unclear how Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert can bridge their differences and jump-start talks before US President Bush’s visit to Israel and the occupied territories next month. In the afterglow of the high-profile Annapolis peace conference, Palestinian and Israeli leaders were supposed to try, in the coming year, to resolve issues that have defied solutions for decades. However, no sooner had Annapolis ended than Israel decided it was time to expand the Har Homa Jewish settlement. That was bad enough — but apparently not bad enough for Israel which has now announced it is examining plans for an even newer settlement in East Jerusalem. The new one is Atarot, whose proposed construction of 10,000 flats will make it the largest Jewish housing project. Under the 2003 road map peace plan, Israel committed to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank but it has never honored that commitment and, now, seems intent on maintaining its 100 percent record of non-compliance. Like numerous prior peace conferences and initiatives, the Annapolis meeting, despite its initial fanfare and euphoria, carries little promise for genuine peace in Palestine. And as always, the reason will be Israel’s adamant refusal to make things work. The settlement issue, among so many others, is just one example of Israel’s determination not to move to peace. And if things don’t work out, it means that the voices not in favor of a peaceful resolution of the conflict will feel vindicated and further empowered.
There are indeed many powers who wish the upcoming peace negotiations ill. They are helped by weakness at the top: a Palestinian president who controls only half his territory and struggles to impose order in what he does control, and an Israeli leader weakened by his inconclusive 2006 war in Lebanon, and who has done little to confront domestic hawks intent on expanding West Bank settlements and torpedoing any progress to peace. But Abbas and Olmert seem to want to provide some momentum before Bush’s expected arrival on Jan. 9. That will not be easy; at no time in the dispute has it been, but particularly in view of what transpired in the year just past. 2007 was not an ordinary year for Palestinians. It witnessed a short-lived government of national unity followed by a mini-civil war between Fatah and Hamas, which ended in Hamas taking over the coastal strip of Gaza and, in retaliation, Fatah establishing its own separate authority in the West Bank. Hamas’ takeover of Gaza paradoxically opened the door to peace talks between the Palestinian leadership now in charge of the West Bank and Israel. However, the split made Palestinian unity a sham and left Hamas and Gaza internationally and financially boycotted. It is into this setting of low expectations and high frustrations that Bush enters Middle East diplomacy up close and personally for the first time. He would like to offset his difficulties in Iraq by making some progress in Palestine. He is more likely, however, to find he is unable to accomplish anything in either place.

—Arab News