On May 14, Pakistan took a wise step toward transforming the potentially impotent Afghan reconciliation efforts into some that may be relatively productive and viable. As all interlocutors involved have acknowledged, without Pakistan’s sincere efforts at reconciliation, only instability in Afghanistan can be guaranteed.

The decision-makers in Pakistan are increasingly recognising that leveraging their ability to create instability in Afghanistan is no longer a desirable policy option. Irrespective of what their fears, temptations and externally-created compulsions are, Pakistan’s civilian and military rulers understand that three decades of instability in Afghanistan have generated an acute security crisis at home.

These realisations within Pakistan augur well for the Afghan reconciliation process, but some domestic truths still need to be acknowledged in Washington. For reasons of pragmatism, self-interest, and in order to maintain a viable partnership with Pakistan, the Obama administration needs to go beyond its present policy of stalling on issues that are of immediate concern to Pakistan.

First, Pakistan needs an immediate apology, which the US president himself must issue at his Chicago meeting with his Pakistani counterpart. Second, the US must draw up measures to ensure Pakistan’s prior knowledge of planned drone strikes, as well as its clearance of intended targets, areas of operation, and the number of attacks. Third, both nations need to agree on fair payments for the use of Pakistani ground supply routes to Afghanistan. And fourth, Nato must make comprehensive guarantees that a repeat of Salala never happens.

These steps would create a Pakistan-US partnership that genuinely promotes their shared objective of regional peace and stability, not to mention the likelihood that they would make this highly controversial partnership more palatable to the Pakistani public and political opposition.

Pakistan’s government has indeed taken the risky political path to pursue responsible policy, and so must Washington. Obama needs to be the statesman, and leverage his credentials as the one who authorised the successful raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound to invest in a peace partnership with Pakistan, and not shy off for fear of Republican attacks, even for an apology for the Salala killings.

Given how Pakistan’s foreign policy debates have been framed, the strong indication of the opening of Nato supply routes and Pakistan’s participation in key talks in Chicago on May 20-21 on the future of Afghanistan may in some circles be interpreted as damaging to Islamabad’s security interests.

As for this being against the people’s wishes, it is important to be clear about the context of foreign and security policy. Public sentiments cannot dictate decisions on whether Nato supply routes should be shut or open. Governments must decide and take responsibility.

In the past, institutions in Pakistan opposing civilian policies fed their views to a segment of the public which was then played back as the people’s sentiments. That’s another long debate for another day.

As for the strong indication to open supply routes damaging or promoting Pakistan’s interests, three facts are relevant. One, that in the immediate context, Pakistan’s invitation to the Chicago summit is linked to the reopening of supply routes — a publicly stated fact. Also indications are that Washington was beginning to put a financial squeeze on Pakistan.

Pakistan’s indication to open the Nato supply routes will now ensure its participation in Chicago. And Chicago is important because it brings Pakistan into the policy-making circle regarding the future of Afghanistan. Clearly when Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the US are in the circle, and are now also pursuing the policy of dialogue with the Taliban that Pakistan has been advocating, Islamabad cannot abandon the opportunity to be part of the process.

While Pakistan’s relevance to Afghanistan’s future is the greatest compared to other countries, it cannot ‘go it alone’. It’s not a unilateral affair. Pakistan needs to be in partnership, on the best negotiated terms possible.

Mutual interests

Afghanistan’s future will realistically, be determined by a four-way engagement — Karzai plus other political groups, the Taliban, Pakistan and the US. So for Pakistan to stay on the margins is unwise and counter-productive since now Pakistan-US interests converge in Afghanistan. It is for this reason that even PPP’s arch-adversary, now Imran Khan’s deputy, the former foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Quraishi, was quoted as saying, the president must go to Chicago.

Two, the routes have been opened after this factor was leveraged to begin negotiations on key Pakistan-US related issues.Negotiations on three specific issues are under way: on terms for the use of supply routes, given that the previous terribly low rate of $350 (Dh1,284.5) per container will have to substantially be increased; on terms for US guarantee of no Salala-type attacks which took place in November last year, and negotiation of arrangements ensuring that there will be no unilateral drones strikes in the future.

Three, how valid is the criticism of the parliamentary process which has been gaining ground especially as US pressure began increasing? Many argue that policy-making is an executive function hence involving the parliament was a wrong idea.

Parliament’s involvement on a key foreign policy issue which has been popularised in the last three decades was necessary to get a general consensus. The long drawn out process triggered the law of diminishing returns to some extent; a fact that Pakistan’s ambassador to the US continued to raise with the government. Washington was almost in awe of the process and began recogising its own shortcomings.

When the two presidents meet in Chicago, Pakistan will have taken a seat at global policy making on Afghanitsan and the region. And, provided that seat is wisely ultilised, Pakistan will have also promoted its own security and economic interests- as it is doing in opening up trade along with conflict resolution dialogue with India. Fortunately, as PML-N’s President Nawaz Sharif repeatedly reiterates there is national consensus on these landmark policy moves.

Nasim Zehra is a writer on security issues.