Two Parties Too Wary for Peace? Central questions for talks with the Taleban in Doha
Today marks the start of the long-awaited peace talks in Doha, Qatar. The first session is expected to be “an icebreaker”, according to sources in Kabul. The Taliban expect the meeting to “set conditions and procedures for the next ones.”
By Christine Roehrs, Syed Asadullah Sadat & Ali Yawar Adil
For the first time, representatives of the Afghan government and the Taleban are coming together, officially, and in person, to negotiate power sharing and peace. While the start of the talks was somewhat delayed by disagreements on the last prisoners to be released, the negotiating teams in Doha are now ready to go. But there are big questions about the prospect for these talks to result in anything ground-breaking. The participants need to overcome years of hostilities, bloodshed and deep-seated mutual mistrust as they try to reconcile their competing visions of the shape of the future state. AAN’s Christine Roehrs, Ali Yawar Adili, and Sayed Asadullah Sadat (with input from Thomas Ruttig and Obaid Ali) have put together a Q&A in order to help with understanding the set-up, the participants, and their respective agendas. They also assess the talks’ chances of success.
Saturday September 12 marks the start of the long-awaited peace talks in Doha, Qatar. The Taleban confirmed their presence, saying that “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would like to declare its readiness to partake in the inauguration ceremony of Intra-Afghan Negotiations.“ The Palace in Kabul announced their representatives at the ceremony would be the head of the High Council for National Reconciliation, Abdullah Abdullah; Acting Foreign Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar; President Ghani’s Special Representative on Peace Affairs, Abdul Salam Rahimi and Peace Minister Sayed Sadat Mansur Naderi. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will attend the opening ceremony as well (his statement is here).
The talks were supposed to start several times since the US-Taleban agreement was signed on 29 February. Six months have passed since the first date was set for 10 March with both the Taleban and the Afghan government accusing each other of delaying the process. The main obstacle was over prisoner release (5,000 Taleban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 prisoners held by the Taleban). The last batch of 400 fighters (deemed especially dangerous by the government) held things up, as did the slow establishment of a central body of the government’s peace architecture, the High Council for National Reconciliation (see a recent AAN analysis here). The first session is expected to be “an icebreaker”, according to sources in Kabul. A contact close to the Taleban in Doha said that they expected the meeting to “set conditions and procedures for the next ones.”
Time to look at a few central questions regarding the process ahead.
Who is sitting at the table?
The government side
The Afghan government has two entities charged with forging peace: a “negotiating team” of 21 members which will largely be at the table, and an unwieldy supervisory structure which is meant to guide the negotiating team, the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR).
- The negotiating team
The Afghan government set up its “inclusive” negotiation team consisting of 21 people in March (for details and critical reactions from civil society and Taleban see this earlier despatch; for the full list with some biographical details see footnote (1)). Many members are current and former officials as well as representatives of factions and parties. While there are some senior figures included, there is a notable imbalance in the makeup of the team as compared with the more senior list of the Taleban (elaborated on further below), who even included members of its leadership council into their negotiating team.
The negotiation team is led by Masum Stanekzai, a Ghani stalwart, who also sits on the HCNR. He has significant – and diverse – experience dealing with the Taleban. He previously headed the country’s intelligence service, the National Directory of Security (NDS), and was acting Minister of Defence. However, before leading the fight against the Taleban, he led peace efforts, serving from 2009 as CEO of the (now mostly defunct) High Peace Council. In that role, Stanekzai saw numerous attempts to achieve a breakthrough fail. He was also severely injured when, in 2011, an envoy of the insurgency ignited a bomb reportedly hidden in his turban, killing the head of the council, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani (see AAN reporting here). Stanekzai hails, by the way, from the same tribe as the Taleban deputy chief negotiator, Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai. Both are from Logar province.
Others on the team notably include political figures who are close relatives of many of the most powerful politicians and warlords of the country: Matin Bek, son of the assassinated north-eastern Afghan mujahedin commander Mutaleb Bek (also presidential advisor and former head of the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, IDLG); Bator Dostum, son of Jombesh party leader Abdul Rashid Dostum; and Khaled Nur, son of former Balkh governor Atta Muhammad Nur. Fatema Gailani is the daughter of former mujahedin leader Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani (with a prominent role herself as one of the early few women politicians and former head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society). Ghairat Bahir is a member of Hezb-e Islami and son-in-law of leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. (AAN was told on 4 September that Bahir and Gailani may not travel to Doha.)
To exclude these political factions would have been to risk derailing the talks with the Jihadis and the Taleban claiming that the negotiators team was not ‘representative’ or heavyweight enough. Another motivation may have been to ‘keep them close’, as some jihadi circles have been known to switch sides. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar already claimed in an interview that “parties” had started their own negotiations, as there was “no consensus between government and political parties on the Afghan peace process.” International observers confirmed that these talks have been ongoing for months. Whatever the reason, the jihadi factions end up with double the influence on the peace process, with some of the most powerful elders also sitting on (or at least invited to) the HCNR.
Among the negotiators there are only four women – including some outspoken characters known for being very critical of the Taleban, for example Fawzia Kufi, a politician linked to elements of the former ‘Northern Alliance’ and a leading women’s rights activist. She was attacked by unknown men while on the road near Kabul and slightly injured mid-August. Some claimed this happened in order to derail the peace process (though it comes amid a wider trend of increased targeted attacks by the Taleban). The Taleban denied responsibility for the attack. Another attack hit and injured HCNR member, First Vice President and outspoken Taleban critic Amrullah Saleh on 9 September, killing ten civilians. The interior ministry pointed fingers towards the Haqqanis. Again, the Taleban denied responsibility. US Afghanistan envoy Zalmay Khalilzad spoke of “spoilers” trying to disrupt the “historic” peace talks.
- The High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR)
The HCNR is supposed to oversee the negotiations, and is headed by President Ghani’s rival Abdullah Abdullah, according to the 17 May power sharing agreement. The agreement put Abdullah in charge of the peace process, meaning the negotiating team will report to him and work “under the guidance of the leadership committee” of the HCNR. The decisions of the leadership committee of the HCNR will be based on a majority of votes and will be final and “binding.”
However, the authority of Abdullah and potentially the HCNR already seems to have been watered down in reality. In earlier reporting AAN discussed whether Ghani would be ready to hand over authority over the peace process to his rival Abdullah. The fact that the council, on 29 August, was appointed by presidential decree, rather than by Abdullah, with Ghani inserting allies into key positions, indicates that Ghani has no intention of ceding power over the process. Abdullah was furious, pointing out that this undermined his role to appoint the High Council. There were also objections from other factions, including former President Hamed Karzai and Hekmatyar (full list of appointees and reactions in this recent AAN analysis).
This is possibly why senior figures around Ghani keep trying to undermine the power of the HCNR. A close aid of the president, National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, told Afghan media on 31 August that the HCNR was not the decision-maker and that any deal with the insurgency would require the approval of the “people” or a loya jirga (grand assembly – which in turn is organised and steered by the government, see this AAN dossier). Chief negotiator and Ghani ally Masum Stanekzai echoed this in a tweet on 3 September which said the recent Consultative Peace Loya Jirga had provided the “roadmap for direct peace talks.” (See the salient points of the final resolution of the jirga in this despatch). Between the lines, Stanekzai was basically saying there was no real need for the “guidance” of the HCNR.
There is more at stake in these disputes than the usual scramble for positions and power. Many of those at the negotiating table or on the High Council see these formations as potential precursors to an interim government, particularly those who over the past years felt side-lined by the Ghani government. This applies to many of the old jihadi commanders, but also to Abdullah, who has been supporting the idea of an interim government, presumably foreseeing a stronger role within it, even if he’d be sharing power with more factions. But the net result is yet more public discord and a fractured front compared to the Taleban, who look relatively united, at least from the outside.
The Taleban side
Like the Afghan government, the Taleban sent 21 people in their negotiation team, as spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed tweeted on 5 September. Unsurprisingly, all are men. An official full list has not yet been released (spokesman Naim Wardak told AAN this would happen at an “appropriate time”), so some of the membership has been compiled via mentions in official statements (for example here and here) and overlapping versions of the staffing list leaked to journalists and others. (For a list of the confirmed candidates and other likely candidates including some biographical details check footnote (2)).
It seems that overall the selection aims to represent the most powerful families and sub-networks within the movement as well as influential tribes and ethnic groups. The mix also seems well weighted between religious scholars, military commanders and political thinkers. But while the government has dispatched mostly mid-ranking former and current officials to the table, the Taleban are fielding real heavyweights – for example senior commanders and known members of the Leadership Council (‘Quetta Shura’) who were close to the founder of the movement, Mullah Omar.
The head of the delegation is the current Chief Justice of the Taleban, Sheikh Abdul Hakim, a religious scholar and a Kandahari, thus representative of the movement’s main region of influence. Spokesman Mujahed confirmed him as chief negotiator. Sher Muhammad Abbas Stanekzai, a former head of the political bureau of the Taleban in Doha, is his deputy.
Other influential members of the group include Mawlawi Abdul Kabir (confirmed), a Taleban official who held a number of previous jobs (for example Governor of Nangarhar province, military commander for the eastern zone and acting Prime Minister). According to AAN research, he is known for his political savviness and management skills. Also on the list is Mullah Shirin (confirmed), a military commander who was once in charge of organising Mullah Omar’s personal security. He has been accused by the Afghan government of being behind the killing of Kandahar’s police chief General Abdul Raziq, who held the Taleban at bay with ruthless methods. Among the representatives of powerful families is Anas Haqqani (reported here and here), brother of current Haqqani clan leader and deputy Taleban chief Serajuddin Haqqani. Anas was in an Afghan jail for five years before he was released in a prisoner swap at the end of 2019.
Also included are some or all of the so called ‘Guantanamo Five’: Taleban officials who were imprisoned by the US in Guantanamo Bay until a prisoner swap in 2014. These are the former Governor of Herat, Khairullah Khairkhwa (confirmed), former Chief of Army Staff Fazl Mazlum (also known as Mullah Fazl), former Northern Zone Commander Nurullah Nuri, and former Deputy Head of Intelligence Abdul Haq Wasiq. There is also Abdul Nabi Omari who at the time of his detention did not play an important role, but who has been catapulted into the leadership sphere through his time in US detention. In October 2018, the whole group of former Guantanamo prisoners was appointed to the Taleban’s political bureau in Doha (see media reporting for example here).
Where these influential men stand in terms of reconciliation and reintegration remains foggy as of yet. AAN’s Kate Clark wrote at the time of their release “they may be useful for negotiations or many years in detention may have hardened them to thoughts of compromise.” However, AAN said that Khairkhwa and Nuri were previously “known as moderates within the movement.”
Khairkhwa certainly made some moderate statements in an interview with Al Jazeera on 12 July, in which he said that the Taleban understood very well that taking power by force will never end the conflicts in Afghanistan (Al Jazeera translation from Arabic, minute 8.21), and acknowledged that Afghan society was not the same compared to 2001 (minute 23.09).
In contrast, a recent paper by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on Taleban perspectives on peace quotes a recording of Fazl, distributed via audiotape to fighters in Afghanistan, in which he assures them that “the movement would insist on three core demands during negotiations: the Taliban is to choose the leader of Afghanistan’s future government, the future government must be an emirate and it is to be based entirely on Sharia.” However, according to the ICG, Fazl had also been instrumental in “persuading the leadership council to accept the final terms in the agreement with the U.S., including its late-stage insistence that the agreement’s formal signing be preceded by a seven-day “reduction of violence”, a move that triggered great suspicion.”
What Will Be On The Agenda?
Neither side has officially disclosed opening demands, but two main points are likely to come up fast – a ceasefire and state formation.
A. Ceasefire
Abdullah Abdullah has said that the Kabul team’s immediate interest is a ceasefire. The government tried to make it a pre-requisite for talks but the Taleban insisted that it should be a topic and possible outcome of the talks themselves. An “immediate and permanent ceasefire” was also a core demand by the participants of the recent Consultative Peace Loya Jirga. There is a pragmatic reason for this focus, as admitted by one government negotiator who told AAN that it is one of the few topics the divided government representatives can agree on, especially on the HCNR. Even on this one issue, though, different options seem to be on the table for the Kabul team: a country wide ceasefire, a humanitarian ceasefire only, or another broader reduction in violence.
For the Taleban, the battlefield is their primary source of power, so for them a ceasefire is a very different calculation. They may determine that the government urgently needs the pause for its severely strained forces and the political success for its legitimacy, and therefore refuse to agree to an immediate ceasefire, instead using the issue as leverage to secure some goals of their own.
The Taleban would certainly be capable of enforcing a ceasefire if it suited them, as the examples over Eid in 2020 and their first ceasefire in June 2018 have shown. However, such a decision would not be without risks for them. The ICG paper cites Taleban concerns that without the threat of violence they’d lose too much leverage, as well as a fear that a ceasefire might cause the fight to lose momentum, with a Taleban source saying that “it is difficult to warm up the mujahidin after cooling them down”. AAN has previously pointed towards the psychological risks of stopping the fighting. During the 2018 ceasefire Taleban fighters were welcomed exuberantly by many in the population, which also allowedfraternisation between Taleban and pro-government fighters. The government claimed that many Taleban fighters quit the movement on that occasion, which may be why during following ceasefires or reductions in violence, the leadership prevented fighters from visiting urban areas.
Ashley Jackson, Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Armed Groups at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), who has been observing the group’s recent conduct, finds there might be “more openness” to a ceasefire demand than in the past. “They could very well do that and surprise people,” says Jackson, pointing to the “credibility” the group could win. Strategic wording may help bring this about: the Taleban may not agree to a “ceasefire” as such, as it is the government’s term, but possibly to another “reduction in violence”.
- State (re)formation
For the Afghan government, preservation of the current ‘democratic’ system is a priority, along with keeping as much of the current constitution as is possible. The Taleban, though, have said they want an “Islamic” system for years while remaining vague on the details. An international source, who saw 11 or 12 discussion points the group had circulated in Doha before the talks, says the Taleban’s focus seems to remain along these lines for the talks: “Islam was on every line”, the contact said. “Islam and education, Islam and government, that’s how they were framing things. Their vision of an end of the war is to have a very different form of government.”
Another source close to the group claimed that initial demands may include establishing a transitional administration by abolishing both houses of parliament and replacing them by another assembly, as well as modifying the constitution by a comittee consisting of religious leaders and lawyers (this has been reported by media in a similar way, see here).
As far back as 2011, in contacts between Afghan government and Taleban, the Taleban included a demand for the revision of the constitution towards something more Islamic, and changes to the national security and judicial institutions, including the Attorney General’s Office. They also brought up the idea of creating an interim government (hukumat-e mu’aqat). (Their demands at the time also included foreign troop withdrawal and prisoner release, as AAN reported in this analysis.)
In general, Taleban contacts have told AAN that they wanted “reforms” (eslah) of the current government institutions to make them more ‘Islamic’. As AAN has reported, “Taleban representatives have also indicated in various meetings that they largely want changes in the personnel of the security and judicial institutions, but do not want to abolish them – to prevent, they argue, a repetition of events “after the fall of Dr Najib’s regime” when the government’s security forces disintegrated and members joined the various competing mujahedin factions.“ AAN determined from its observations that the Taleban may still be partial to re-establishing an Emirate, but their statements also “recognise the need for some political pragmatism and adaptability. Or at least, they want to pretend that they do.”
The lack of public clarity in the Taleban positions may partly be a negotiation strategy – or indicate a lack of internal consensus. The ICG in its recent analysis comes to the conclusion that the Taleban have “historically avoided the internal debate and risk to cohesion that would come with forging consensus on difficult questions of governance and ideology.“Internally, “the group has left many questions unanswered or permitted maximalist positions to flourish.”
Mixed Messages: Do the Taleban Want Peace?
The Taleban used to be adamant that they would only negotiate with the Americans, dismissing the Kabul government as a stooge. Now that they’ve already secured much of what they wanted from the Americans (withdrawal and prisoner release), it is not clear how committed they are to negotiations with the Afghan government. The ICG writes after talking to an experienced international Taleban interlocutor that the Taleban appear to be equally “poised to pursue political or military tracks as they evaluate adversaries’ actions and their opportunities to achieve their objectives through negotiations.”
The choice of high-level negotiators points to some real interest. Having a religious authority and high-ranking official from leadership circles such as Sheikh Abdul Hakim head the team sends the message that decision will be taken in line with Sharia (see media reporting to that effect also here). This might take the wind out of critics’ sails, since it is possible that there are some factions of the Taleban who remain skeptical about a political solution and some form of power sharing.
However, at the same time the Taleban keep sending mixed messages, resulting in fears among the population and government that the opaque movement may simply be going along with the talks to speed up the continued US withdrawal and then, with the Afghan National Security Forces further weakened and demoralized, take power by force. (US Defense Secretary Mark Esper in August said that troop numbers would be below 5,000 by the end of November – General Frank McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command, on 9 September even put it at 4,500 by late October).
Mixed messages have come for example from the battlefield. The Taleban did offer a brief ceasefire over Eid al-Fitr in May and adhered to another over Eid al-Adha end of July. They have also ceased their attacks on international forces, as per the agreement with the US, and more or less stuck to a period of reduced violence in the days leading up to the US-Taleban agreement. But shortly after they resumed their fight. In the first half of 2020, they were already responsible for more civilian casualties than in the same time in 2019 (see AAN reporting here). Taleban researcher Ashley Jackson says, “they have expanded their checkpoints in the past six months by a factor of four. That is massive.” It does beg the question, as Jackson goes on, as to “whether this is about increasing leverage at the bargaining table or whether this is about preparing for when talks break down.”
Taleban statements also continue to indicate disregard for the Afghan government – an unfavourable pre-condition for peace talks. On August 15, for example, a Taleban spokesman published a piece on the movement’s al-Emarah website [Arabic for the Emirate], saying that “the Islamic Emirate does not recognise the Kabul administration as a government but views it as [a] western imported structure working for the continuation of American occupation.” The piece went on to say that the movement only accepted talks according to the Doha agreement, “and those are intra-Afghan negotiations that cover all parties to the Afghan conflict.” This framing clearly represents a Taleban view that the Afghan government is not speaking for the country but is merely one of many interested parties.
Is the Afghan Government Committed to Talks?
There are clearly some in the Afghan government who feel they’ve been bullied into these talks by the US, and that they are starting from a point of weakness, with the government’s two main bargaining chips already conceded to the Taleban by the US: Firstly, the presence of US troops – now in the final phase of US troop withdrawal, driven on by President Trump’s hopes that ‘bringing soldiers home from the country’s longest war’ will be a helpful narrative in the November US elections. Secondly, the large number of Taleban fighters in government prisons – almost 5,000 of which have now been released. Given this, there has been speculation that Ghani may hold out hope that the US elections in November remove Trump, and stop the troop withdrawal, giving him a better hand in the talks – or relieving the pressure on him to deal with the Taleban altogether.
To the extent that the factions within the government team are guided by narrow self-interests, the Ghani contingent certainly have disincentives to move towards what seems to be a possible outcome of talks – an interim government, which as mentioned above is something that the president and his supporters vehemently oppose. Cynics would say this is because it would dilute the president’s power. Supporters would say it is because they fear that the reforms and progress of recent years would be threatened in an interim arrangement, or that it would quickly disintegrate into open conflict. Either way, it does mean there are question marks over the degree of commitment from the president’s team.
Conclusion: What Are the Chances That Talks Succeed?
These will be talks between two very wary parties, and there are any number of contentious issues that can halt the process or make either party pull the plug on them altogether. If they don’t collapse quickly, they are likely to be a drawn out affair, with the two parties looking differently at fundamental questions, including how and in whom power should be vested – an emir, or theocracy, versus a ‘democratically’ elected government; what role a constitution should play; which rights citizens such as women or minorities should enjoy, and what the future make-up and leadership of the security forces including the possible integration of Taleban fighters could look like.
Altogether, the glue to this initiative – the US-Taliban agreement from February – is brittle. The Afghan government was excluded from that agreement, feeling forced into some of its key provisions (such as the prisoner release), and neither the Taleban nor the Afghan government much trust the US. By offering the biggest possible incentives to the Taleban – the withdrawal of their troops and prisoner release – the US managed to bring them to a table that for the longest time they did not want to sit at. However, should the withdrawal not be completed as agreed by May 2021, the Taleban might react by pulling away from the agreement.
So far, however, the Taleban have only made significant gains by talking. Afghanistan expert Marvin G. Weinbaum from the Middle East Institute recently observed in a commentary for The National Interest that “the Taliban delegates found that by standing firm they could push the Americans to yield on virtually all key points.” The phrase “giving away everything for nothing“ has been making the rounds among Afghan and international diplomats and politicians. This may well have already set the tone for the talks, making the government’s commitment tentative.
Yet another potential spoiler is the disunity and the competing interests among the Kabul delegates. With the Ghani administration dominating the decision-making of the negotiation team and HCNR and causing friction with Abdullah and jihadi circles, the Taleban have an opportunity to drive more wedges into the government team or peel influential members away. This could even leave the government at risk of facing a majority in favour of an interim government. It is likely that the Ghani administration would pull the plug on the talks if they headed in this direction.
The negotiations, which have great symbolic and emotional meaning for the country, will need some quick successes, if they are not to fail fast. But with the two most obvious subjects for discussion quite differently weighted – with the Taleban possibly defensive on ceasefire and the government defensive on state reform – it is not at all clear where an early breakthrough might be found, that might shore up this fragile bbeginning.
Courtesy: Afghanistan Analysts Network
