347 Carlos Setas Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the peace process with the afhgan taliban for more than 10 years. The US has experienced problems in pursuing this policy due to its own internal opposition to engaging in negotiations, seen by some quarters of the US administration as unjustifiable after the long period of war and the losses suffered. Nevertheless, the Obama administration has opted for negotiations, initiating a process of self-persuasion in which the enemy that attacked the US is Al Qaeda and not the Taliban. The Afghan government seeks to utilise the negotiations to establish a political process under its control that would ensure that the elite who are currently in power would remain in government in the future. There are also divisions within the Afghan authorities as to talks with the Taliban and it is generally the Pashtuns who are more favourable than the other ethnic groups. Hamid Karzai could see himself evermore isolated as he defends the option of talks within his government. It is also possible that Kabul’s position will alter depending on how the ability of the Afghan armed forces to tackle the Taliban after the withdrawal of Western troops is perceived. As for Pakistan, as readers have already seen in the first part of this article, it seeks the same thing it has always sought: a friendly Afghanistan that will secure its western border in the case of conflict with India. This implies that Pakistan wants a front row seat at the talks, in order to keep track of the entire process, as well as wanting Indian presence and influence in Afghanistan to be reduced to the bare minimum. Pakistan is counting on its support for the Afghan insurgency to use as a bargaining chip in this respect. Nonetheless, the Afghan Taliban have shown signs of wanting to shake off ISI control as well as harbouring a certain feeling of having been betrayed by Islamabad after 9/11 and the US invasion of their country. A further factor is the opposition of all non-Pashtun Afghans who have endured Pakistani intervention in support of the Taliban from the nineties onwards, in addition to the support provided by Islamabad to the most religiously radical Mujahideen groups during the eighties. Whatever the case may be, its capacity for intervention and influence in Afghanistan will allow the country to remain a key actor in any peace process that takes place in Afghanistan. This very influence may lead the Afghan government to make the choice of ensuring that Pakistan gets what it wants by means of some form of agreement that would envisage diminishing India’s role in the region. The Taliban position is perhaps the hardest to decipher. From what can be gleaned from talks held thus far, the Taliban have made dialogue conditional on the following: the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country; the release of all Taliban prisoners held by Pakistan, the US or in Afghanistan itself; the international community’s recognition of the Taliban movement and the lifting of sanctions imposed by the United Nations in 1999. For the time being, they have refused to enter into direct negotiations with the government in Kabul and have insisted that these take place with American involvement. That said, Taliban interest in negotiating just two years after the withdrawal of Western troops is questionable. It is possible that the Taliban have reached the same
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