The Afghanistan-Taliban reconciliation: a chance to turn so many evils into good

While the Muslim world, and the whole world in general, was holding its breath, attentive to the process under way to stop the genocide in Gaza, a war was about to break out between Afghanistan and Pakistan. While one must be alert to any development that would overshadow Gaza and all the humanitarian and political situations relating to it, it is quite meaningful that two fine Islamic countries came to this point with each other. Especially the fact that this development occurred shortly after US President Trump said that "withdrawing from Bagram Base was a mistake and that they would return," and the reply of the Islamic Emirate's Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, "If they dare to fight us for another 20 years, if they can, let them come and take it," reminded us, painfully, how susceptible the balances of the Islamic world still are to being played with.

Thank God, before the events grew further, an agreement was reached yesterday in Doha through the mediation of Qatar and Turkey. The image of the agreement table, which was also signed on behalf of Turkey by MIT Director İbrahim Kalın on the instruction of the President, is truly very hopeful and proud-making. It is an event that, together with Qatar, makes Turkey's problem-solving weight felt once again. This weight has to do not only with having a good mind but with a power, a standing and a weight that can give assurance to the parties in the Islamic world and indeed in the world in general. It has also been announced that the technical details of the agreement will later be worked out and processed in Istanbul, again with the participation of the same parties.

In fact, in the same geography last May, the tension and mutual friction between Pakistan and India, which again came close to erupting, was resolved quickly, and Turkey played a different kind of role in that resolution too. Of course this resolution would most likely be temporary and a resolution at only one level. Otherwise the tension between Pakistan and India is the requirement of a program inscribed in the founding genetics of both. The conflict between the two concerns not only the two of them, and its causes are of course not only about themselves. Indeed, at some point in the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the silhouettes of India, the US and Israel, as actors who may be hidden or may line up immediately, promptly appeared.

Normally there should be no serious reason requiring Afghanistan and Pakistan to clash. The values, means and interests they share require them to be in very serious cooperation rather than conflict, by which both would gain much more and prosper much more.

However, the fact that on October 9, when the clashes between the two countries began, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi was, independently of these events, on a trip to India to establish their relations gave the impression that Afghanistan might be sending a message to Pakistan by drawing closer to India.

Was this, then, more than an impression, a sign of a relationship? Truly, since the moment the Taliban administration came to power in Afghanistan, it has been conducting a multifaceted and peaceful diplomacy in order to develop the country and get it out of the sieges it is in. In an environment where even the nearest countries have refrained from recognizing it, it is deepening its relations with Russia, the first country to recognize it. India, too, on this visit, has announced that it will recognize Afghanistan by raising its relations with Afghanistan to the level of embassy. It must be said that the Taliban administration is very far from thinking of buying this recognition at the expense of any other country, in particular a Muslim country.

In fact, for all Islamic countries to begin normalizing relations with Afghanistan as soon as possible would be both in their own interest and the soundest way of protecting Afghanistan from knocking on wrong doors in this predicament of its. The strongest impression I gained in all my meetings with Afghan officials was that they prioritize developing every kind of commercial and political relationship with Islamic countries and especially with Turkey. As long as Turkey or other Islamic countries delay, no one can criticize Afghanistan for its dealings with other parties.

As for the dispute with Pakistan.

The matter relates largely to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its relations with Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban (TTP) was founded in 2007 in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan, especially in South Waziristan on the Afghan border, by Baitullah Mehsud, one of the leading figures of the Mehsud tribe of Waziristan. Mehsud, who had fought in the ranks of the Afghan Taliban against the American invasion of 2001, was killed in a US air strike in 2013 and was succeeded by Hakimullah Mehsud and Mullah Fazlullah.

The relationship between the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban stems from both coming from the same Deobandi madrasa tradition and being largely Pashtun-dominated. (The Afghan Taliban of course does not consist only of Pashtuns; as we wrote before, today within the Taliban administration there is also representation of people from other ethnic groups in senior positions almost in proportion to their population weight). In fact, on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan there is a predominantly Pashtun and Baloch population, and this population was split down the middle by a border drawn by the British back in the time of India. Considering the geographical structure of the region too, this border seems to separate the two countries from each other culturally and demographically only on the map. For that reason, during the Soviet and US invasions this region had practically become integrated.

In those periods the Pakistani Taliban fought together with their Afghan brothers, with whom they studied at the same madrasas and by whose culture they were influenced and with whom they used the same language. However, in the new situation after the war, the discourse of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan openly declared that it does not allow, and will not allow, its territory to be used against any other country. Saying that it would focus on the development of its own country, it even declared a general amnesty for internal peace in its own country. This move of social peace has really made a serious difference for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

However, the TTP criticizes its own country, that is, Pakistan, very harshly because of its relations with the US, and sees this as a betrayal of Islam and engages in activities against it. Afghanistan neither accepts any responsibility in this matter nor accepts the claim that the TTP operates on its territory. This is the dispute between them, and in fact it is not a problem that mediation by countries such as Turkey and Qatar, bound to both brotherly countries with the same feeling of brotherhood, could not solve. Today the Islamic world needs to unite more; there are a series of common problems that require them to stand in solidarity with each other. Both countries are in a position to feel this common responsibility. In a world where 2 billion Muslims are helpless against a 7-million Israel, there should not be a problem that two countries bearing the "Islam" identity in both of their names cannot solve with each other.

Hidden in every evil there may be goods we do not notice. Turning this evil too into an opportunity for goods is possible by feeling the common problems a little more and focusing on them.