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Trilateral Working Group on Afghanistan: a Blunder in the Making?

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Trilateral Working Group on Afghanistan: a Blunder in the Making? CENTRE FOR LAND WARFARE STUDIES ISSUE BRIEF No. 98 March 2017 Trilateral Working Group on Afghanistan: A Blunder in the Making? Brigadier V Mahalingam (Retd), commissioned in the Madras Regiment is a defence and strategic analyst. He commanded a Mountain Brigade and was the Force Commander of the National Security Guard. Key Points • The war in Afghanistan are part Al Qaeda’s larger aim of ‘global jihad’. It may therefore he third meeting of the ‘Trilateral Working be a delusion to believe that the Taliban’s Group’ on Afghanistan was held in Moscow aims are limited within the boundaries of on 27 December 2016, with China, Russia, and Afghanistan. T • Militarily Taliban today is in a weighty Pakistan being the participants. The earlier meetings held in Beijing and Islamabad in April 2013 and position. It owes no obligation to anyone November 2013 respectively, as in the present case, did except perhaps to Pakistan. It has nothing not include Afghanistan, the country whose security to lose. Taliban therefore is unlikely to give up arms or merely accept a part role in the was purportedly being discussed or the United States Governance of Afghanistan as a coalition (US) who had been involved in fighting in the country partner. since 2001, though unsuccessfully. A Russian sponsored • Employing one terror group to fight twelve nation peace conference on Afghan is on 14 another, supporting, arming and financing April 2017 in Moscow. Reports indicate that the US irresponsible groups to fight a proxy war, and five Central Asian nations have also been invited. differentiating between good and bad terror Hopefully the US will participate in the meeting and the are sure recipes for disaster in the long term. Taliban will not be invited to a discussion between states • The problem in Afghanistan is not about lending status to the terror outfit. any dispute within the country or its people. It is about Pakistan’s aims and its constant interference in the security situation in Chinese and Russian Concerns Afghanistan with a view to achieve its objectives. Maintaining social order in the Xinjiang Uyghur • Fight against terrorism needs to be viewed Autonomous Region (XUAR) is probably the most as a global war and tackled globally with a significant internal problem of China related to multi-directional approach. Afghanistan. China apprehends that Afghan instability The Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi, is an autonomous think tank dealing with national security and conceptual aspects of land warfare, including conventional and sub-conventional conflict and terrorism. CLAWS conducts research that is futuristic and outlook and policy-oriented in approach. Website: www.claws.in Contact us: [email protected] 2 CLAWS and radicalism could encourage and broaden the present The Joint Statement of the Trilateral Working Uyghur unrest in Xinjiang, its western province. The Group and Inferences Central Asian Republic (CAR) countries, neighbouring Afghanistan, houses over 3,00,0001 citizens of Uyghur Expressing concern about the ‘worsening security ethnicity.1 The likelihood of Eastern Turkistan Islamic situation’ in Afghanistan, Russia, China and Pakistan Movement (ETIM),the militant group active in China’s have agreed on expanding tripartite consultations on Xinjiang province, which calls itself the Turkistan Afghanistan and have expressed the desire to have Islamic Party (TIP) establishing bases and operating Afghanistan taking part in the discussions. The two from across the CAR supported by the Uyghur permanent members of the UNSC, Russia and China, sympathizers is disturbing. The fact that several Afghan have confirmed their flexible approach by deciding to militant groups have pledged alliance to Islamic work towards excluding certain individuals from the State (IS) and have also supported ETIM compounds world body’s sanctions list as part of efforts to promote problems of linkages and increases the possibility of a peaceful dialogue between Kabul and the Taliban non-Uyghur militants entering Xinjiang in the name of movement. The statement said: global jihad, especially after IS losing its hold in Iraq. The participants agreed to continue efforts to assist Earlier, the Global Times, a tabloid by China’s ruling in furthering the national reconciliation process in Communist Party’s official newspaper, the People’s Afghanistan, based on the key role of the Afghans Daily, had reported2 that about 300 Chinese members themselves and in line with the principles of 5 of the ETIM had travelled to Syria via Turkey and are integrating the armed opposition into peaceful life. fighting alongside the IS in Iraq and Syria.2 China is The Afghan branch of the IS was the only terror outfit also apprehensive that destabilization in Afghanistan that found a place in the joint statement whose identity could disrupt trade in the entire region and will have and source of creation are questionable. a retarding effect on its US$ 250 billion One Belt One The statement suggests increased Russia-China Road (OBOR) project. cooperation in Afghanistan. Nothing was spelt out in Russian fears of Afghan militancy are reflected in this regard, however, there was no indication about the statements made by its diplomats. Speaking at the the Afghan Taliban or the Haqqani Network, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in the last predominant terror groups presently operating in week of December 2016, Russia’s ambassador to the Afghanistan which have been responsible for infusing United Nations (UN), late Vitaly Churkin, had said that3 the major part of violence in the country, resulting in the deteriorating security situation, has encouraged IS casualties to both civilians and the security forces. The militants fleeing Syria and Iraq to look at Afghanistan ‘readiness for flexible approach’ and the willingness of for shelter. He said, they will eventually pose a threat to Russia and China to ‘exclude certain individuals from Russia through neighbouring Central Asian States. He the list of sanctioned persons’ indicates the willingness further added: of these participants to provide legitimacy to these There is also information about the presence in terror groups so that they could be accommodated in Afghanistan of ISIL camps and safe harbors, some form as a part of the governing establishment in where people from Central Asian states and Afghanistan. Northern Caucasus republics are being trained Taliban has welcomed the tripartite meeting and and where 700 terrorist families from Syria the proposal for delisting its members from the world have already arrived. body’s sanction list as a positive step.6 But the major Alexey Y Dedov, the Russian Ambassador to Pakistan question is will Taliban agree to give up arms? How in an exclusive interview to Radio Pakistan had said the would it conduct itself if inducted as a coalition partner following: within the Afghan government? Will it be able to control the various groups within its own organization and the We are especially concerned about the growth of Daesh which is proliferating its influence to some others who have taken up arms? Or will it build a larger northern areas of Afghanistan, which directly border terror factory in Afghanistan with ambitions across the territories of our allies in our brotherly Central Asian Afghan borders? Republics.4 CLAWS 3 Afghan-led Afghan-owned Peace Process February 2017, indicates that Salam Watandar, the son of a slain leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan In January 2016, Afghanistan’s President Ghani had (IMU), which had pledged support to IS in August asked the UNSC to impose sanctions against the 2015, is leading the efforts to resettle up to 650 foreign Taliban chief, Haibatullah Akhundzada. The question is Pakistani and Uzbek militants and their families in the how could China and Russia interfere in Afghanistan’s said provinces.13 Are these the 700 IS terrorist families internal issues and decide on removing Taliban leaders who are said to have arrived in Afghanistan from Syria from the UN’s sanctions list on their own? Is that not the referred to by the Russian Ambassador to the UNSC? prerogative of the Afghan people and their government? Neither ISIS Wilayat Khorasan nor ISIS’s central These are the very elements that have been provided media has claimed the aforementioned events. Since safe havens in Pakistan and have been responsible for the Uzbek and former Taliban militants who have been the killing of thousands of innocent Afghan people and mentored by Pakistan and their families are involved in have still not given up violence. these incidents it is not clear if these elements are those Why was Afghanistan not included in the talks? of IS or are the consortia being brought to Afghanistan Obviously, the discussions were to focus on issues by the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan in which the participants knew will not be to the liking the name of IS. of Afghanistan, the war-torn country. The aim perhaps Speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee, was to decide on a solution of convenience and thrust it General Nicholson, and the US Commander in upon Afghanistan for implementation for an Afghan-led Afghanistan stated that the ISIS of Afghanistan has Afghan-owned peace process.7 little to do with the core group led from Syria. Majority of them are of Pakistani and Uzbek extremists’ origin IS Presence in Afghanistan: What is the who ‘rebranded’ themselves as members of ISIS.14 Or is Reality? it that they were ‘rebranded’ as IS by the ISI?
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