There is no doubt that the Afghan government would like to have a lead role in the proposed peace talks with the Taliban, but this is unlikely to happen in the near future. In the prevailing circumstances, the announcement by certain Afghan officials in Kabul that they were planning their own separate meetings with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia appears more of a wish than a reality.
For obvious reasons, Kabul was angered at being kept out of the talks between the Taliban and the US in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Its anger increased upon learning that the US had agreed to the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar. The government of President Hamid Karzai made known its annoyance to the US, but it didn't have much of a choice than accepting the fait accompli and eventually supporting the move to let the Taliban have an office in Qatar for "the sake of peace in Afghanistan."
By sending out feelers that it intended its own peace talks with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia, the Afghan government apparently wanted to belittle the importance of the Qatar peace process and assert the point that it had other options as well. It is another matter that both the Saudis and the Taliban are the least interested presently in helping Kabul to explore this option.
Concerning Qatar, the Karzai government took more concrete steps to show its annoyance over being sidelined in the Taliban-US talks. It recalled its ambassador in Qatar and asked the Qatari government to send a delegation to Kabul to explain its position for giving permission to the Taliban to open an office in Doha.
The Qatar delegation has yet to visit Kabul and it is possible the Qataris want the Americans to sort out the issue. It is obvious that Qatar would not have hosted the talks or agreed to the Taliban office in Doha without Washington's blessings.
For Saudi Arabia to host peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban is premature. The Saudis may have problems with the Qataris, but they won't try to upstage the Americans and would rather let them talk to the Taliban in Qatar.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia had put certain tough conditions in the past in response to repeated requests by Karzai to mediate the Afghan peace process. Its foremost condition was that the Taliban must dissociate from Al Qaida, which remains the biggest enemy of the Saudi kingdom. The Taliban have declined to give such a commitment. Also, the Saudis had made it clear they won't act as mediator unless there were real chances of success of peacemaking in Afghanistan.
Saudi Arabia knows this for sure as it had tried and failed in the past to mediate between the warring Afghan mujahideen groups fighting the Soviet forces and later when the Taliban were battling the Northern Alliance.
Inflexible stances
More importantly, the Taliban have ruled out talks with the Afghan government. They have refused to recognise Karzai's government and dubbed it as a US puppet. This was reiterated in a recent statement by the secretive Taliban central shura, or council, which decided not to negotiate with the Karzai government as it was "illegal and powerless."
The council also decided that the Qatar talks would continue to focus on prisoners' swap with the US as part of the confidence-building measures before any real peace negotiations could begin. The Taliban shura has made it clear that their fighters would not suspend military operations against the US-led Nato and Afghan forces during the duration of the Qatar talks.
Just like the Taliban, Karzai also believes that the Taliban are powerless and mere puppets in the hands of Pakistan. After the chief Afghan peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani's assassination late last year in a suicide bombing for which Kabul blamed the Taliban and the Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, Karzai declared that his government would henceforth talk to Pakistan instead of the Taliban as the latter cannot do anything without Islamabad's permission.
By refusing to recognise each other's position, the Afghan government and the Taliban would continue to drift apart and talk to others instead of talking to one another.
If the Taliban stick to their inflexible stand, any hopes of a ceasefire in Afghanistan should be put to rest. The US was hoping for an agreement on ceasefire as the talks in Doha, capital of Qatar, move ahead. Ironically, the Taliban and the US are following the same strategy because Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been defending her government's policy of "fight, talk and build" in context of Afghanistan. Both sides appear keen to fight and talk as long as it takes.
Achieving a breakthrough in the Qatar talks without any agreement on ceasefire and prisoners' swap would be impossible. The Taliban aim is to secure release of their prisoners, particularly the five top commanders being held at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, in exchange for the American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, who has been in their custody for two and a half years.
The US objective from the Qatar talks is to persuade the Taliban to enter into direct talks with the Afghan government, renounce violence and abandon Al Qaida. The preliminary Qatar talks are at an uncertain stage, the role of Pakistan as an important player due to its closeness to the Taliban is unclear and the objectives of the US and Taliban from the process are poles apart. It would, therefore, be wrong to attach too many expectations to these talks at this stage.
Rahimullah Yusufzai is a senior journalist based in Peshawar.
