(Bloomberg) -- A Pakistan delegation is due to arrive in Afghanistan on Saturday to restart talks aimed at improving tense relations between the neighboring countries that have worsened amid a surge in deadly Taliban attacks.
The significant militant escalation -- pushing back against a renewed and aggressive U.S. troop deployment -- has put further pressure on the government already reeling from the long-lasting conflict. With the possibility of peace talks fading quickly, experts predict further deadly aggression from the militant group that is already active across nearly half of the country. Hundreds have been killed and wounded in Taliban attacks in Kabul in the last two weeks alone.
“The high-profile attacks demonstrated the strength of the Taliban and it is sending a clear message that they are actually condemning any kind of peace talks,” said Naem Lalai Hamidzai, an Afghan lawmaker. “Those attacks were also retaliation against their losses in the battlefields in rural areas.”
A high-level Afghan delegation traveled to Pakistan on Wednesday to share evidence they say shows recent attacks were planned in Pakistan. The Pakistan delegation, led by its Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua, will meet Afghan officials in Kabul on Feb. 3. The Afghan government has repeatedly accused Pakistan and its spy agencies of assisting the Taliban and affiliated militants in the country. Pakistan has denied these allegations.
In recent years Afghanistan has attempted many rounds of ultimately fruitless talks with Taliban members through the militant group’s representative office in Qatar or in countries such as Pakistan, Dubai, China and Turkey. Taliban envoys last month held more talks with Pakistani officials and a prominent Afghan politician in Islamabad. Yet the insurgents have repeatedly rebuffed the government’s call to hold Afghan-to-Afghan talks, President Ashraf Ghani and former President Hamid Karzai have said.
‘Red Line’
Following the latest attacks, the appetite for reconciliation with the Taliban is waning. The insurgents have crossed a “red line” and are losing the opportunity for peace talks with the government, Shah Hussain Murtazawi, a spokesman for Ghani said in an interview. They will be eliminated in the battlefield, he said.
Yet a military solution to the 17-year conflict has remained elusive and Donald Trump is now the third U.S. president attempting to end the quagmire in Afghanistan. Previously critical of America’s presence in the country, he boosted U.S. troops to 14,000 in the country in an attempt to shore up Afghan forces and pressure the Taliban to reconciliation. Still that’s well below the 2011 peak of 140,000 troops under his predecessor Barack Obama.
Last week, Trump also said there would be no entertaining talks with the group following the wave of bloody attacks. “They are killing people left and right, innocent people,” he told reporters in Washington. Trump reiterated during his State of the Union address on Tuesday that he would give no timeline to American assistance to Afghanistan’s government.
“The administration is pledging to stay on the battlefield, ultimately that’s an untenable goal because there is no way this war can be won militarily,” said Michael Kugelman, a senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “It’s essentially a position of fight now, talk later.”
In response to Trump’s comments, the Taliban said the U.S. has never had the intention of holding peace talks and repeated their long held stance that they won’t negotiate until all foreign forces have left Afghanistan.
Taliban Control
The last U.S. count indicated the Taliban controlled or contested more than 40 percent of the country, while British Broadcasting Corp. survey published on Wednesday claimed that the Taliban were active in 70 percent of the country.
“Although for some the end-game foresees a political settlement, there are no peace talks and it’s unlikely that any talks could even be contemplated given the current environment,” said Omar Samad, a former Afghan ambassador to Canada and France. “We will most likely experience further escalation on all sides.”
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