[In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times and appeared in the Afghan news media, Mr. Agha supported the idea of talks, and said the insurgency should be urgently trying to position itself as an Afghan political movement independent from the influence of Pakistani intelligence officials who have sheltered, and at times manipulated, the Taliban since 2001.]
By
Mujib Mashal
 |
|
Sayed
Muhammad Tayeb Agha, right, the former Taliban chief negotiator, speaking
to reporters in 2001 in Spinbaldak,
Afghanistan. Credit
Ruth Fremson/
The New York Times |
KABUL, Afghanistan — The
Taliban’s internal debate over whether and how to negotiate with the Afghan
government is playing out in the open, even as there have been renewed attempts
to restart talks.
Breaking
with nearly 15 years of public silence, Sayed Muhammad Tayeb Agha, who until
recently was the Taliban’s chief negotiator and head of their political
commission, issued a letter about peace talks to the insurgency’s supreme
leader over the summer and discussed reconciliation efforts in an interview
with The New York Times in recent days, his first on the record with a Western
publication in years.
In the
letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times and appeared in the Afghan
news media, Mr. Agha supported the idea of talks, and said the insurgency
should be urgently trying to position itself as an Afghan political movement
independent from the influence of Pakistani intelligence officials who have
sheltered, and at times manipulated, the Taliban since 2001.
Mr. Agha
led efforts to open the Taliban’s political office in Qatar in 2011, and he was
instrumental in negotiations that led to the release of the last known American
prisoner of war held by the Taliban, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, in exchange for the
release of five Taliban detainees from the American prison camp at Guantánamo
Bay. But he became disgruntled over the internal power struggle that broke out
in 2015 after the death of the movement’s founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, for
whom he was a trusted aide. He remains in exile abroad.
Within the
Taliban, discussions of whether or how to take up negotiations have proved
divisive. Some of the group’s most senior field commanders openly bridled at
the possibility in 2015, when a meeting in Pakistan seemed to signal that talks
might progress. Now, however, with the insurgents seizing so much territory in
Afghanistan and badly bloodying the security forces, some officials believe the
Taliban might be more amenable to coming to the table.
Mr. Agha’s
letter, which he sent in July but has not been answered by the new Taliban leader,
Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, was a sign that not all senior Taliban figures
were so reluctant to talk. In fact, he insisted that it should be a priority
for the insurgency — and that the Taliban movement must change to allow it or
risk disintegrating into splinter groups, making way for bandits and Islamic
State loyalists.
Much of
Mr. Agha’s letter, about four pages long and containing eight recommendations,
was focused on steps that would reform the insurgent group from a force that
sees itself as divinely mandated, but is largely dependent on Pakistan’s
intelligence service, to a relatively independent political movement that could
fit into a framework of reconciliation with the Afghan government.
He
suggested that the insurgency break with foreign fighters in its ranks, call
itself a movement rather than an Islamic emirate, and stop pretending it is a
parallel government. And he wrote that the Taliban leader should avoid the
claim to the Islamic title of Amir ul-Momineen, the commander of the faithful,
because the reality of his ascent to power did not fit the criteria of
allegiance, and the effort of forcing allegiance had spurred a bloody power
struggle in the ranks during the past year.
His most
important recommendation was that the insurgency’s leadership, which has
operated in exile in Pakistan since the toppling of its regime in 2001, should
leave that country to avoid being used as proxies.
“The
presence in Pakistan of the movement’s key and decisive members and structures
… will force on the movement things that are against the interests of the
movement and Afghanistan,” Mr. Agha wrote in the letter.
In the
interview, conducted by email, Mr. Agha said the most opportune moment for
peace talks was 2010, when Mullah Omar signed off on the idea and his
representatives began directly negotiating with the Americans, though not with
the Afghan government.
But Mr.
Agha insisted that progress could be made now despite the existence of a public
ultimatum from the Taliban that they would never negotiate with the Afghan
government as long as American or other foreign troops were still in
Afghanistan — a demand he characterized as flexible.
In fact,
he rejected the idea that the insurgency had strict preconditions for talks
beyond certain necessary trust-building measures.
“Not at
all — we did not have the precondition that the American forces leave and then
we will sit down with the Kabul government, because that would not be wise and
practical,” Mr. Agha said in the interview. “Of course, if we had reached that
stage of negotiations, we would have asked for a deadline, for a timetable. And
this was our right, and also a wise condition.”
Now, some
officials say, there have been renewed efforts to contact Taliban
representatives and start working toward peace talks. But most described those
attempts as preliminary, and there was some worry that the Taliban would
continue pressing their military offensives while trying to fool the Afghan
government by saying they were amenable to talks.
Pakistan’s
role in any negotiations also remains a divisive issue.
The new
Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani banked tremendous political capital
on trying to persuade Pakistan to bring the Taliban to the table. After just
one round of talks in a Pakistani resort town last summer with a Taliban
delegation of suspect legitimacy, the process fell apart. Mr. Ghani’s
government now publicly asserts that there is a Pakistani military hand in the
Taliban battlefield gains this year.
Officials
remain divided on the extent of Pakistan’s control over the Taliban, and how
much that affects their intention to talk about peace. A former senior Afghan
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters,
said that individual members of the Taliban’s leadership council might well
support the idea of talks and moving away from Pakistan’s sphere of influence.
But put them all together in the same room, the official said, and none would
say so — out of fear as well as internal mistrust.
Nevertheless,
Afghan officials say Pakistani influence over the Taliban is an increasingly
touchy issue within the insurgency’s ranks.
“The
Taliban were angered by Ashraf Ghani saying somewhere that if they make a deal
with Pakistan, then Pakistan can deliver the Taliban,” said Anwar ul Haq Ahadi,
a former Afghan cabinet minister involved in some of the contacts with the
Taliban. “They were offended. Peace through Pakistan — that has failed. The
assumptions were wrong.”
Follow
Mujib Mashal on Twitter @MujMash.