“We are overcoming history”

Ammara Ahmad talks to the Afghan ambas­sador to Pak­istan, His Excel­len­cy Janan Mosazai, about trade, ter­ror­ism, and crick­et.

Ammara Ahmad: A few months ago, you said that this is the ‘new chap­ter” for rela­tions between Pak­istan and Afghanistan. What exact­ly did you mean?

His Excel­len­cy, Janan Mosazai: There has been a new begin­ning after the elec­tion of the Nation­al Uni­ty gov­ern­ment, espe­cial­ly after Pres­i­dent Ghani’s his­toric vis­it to Pak­istan in Novem­ber last year, when the gov­ern­ments of the two coun­tries start­ed high-lev­el strate­gic dia­logue that has been ongo­ing, both on secu­ri­ty and eco­nom­ic coop­er­a­tion. One thing that we always have to bear in mind, at least from the Afghan per­spec­tive, is that the des­tinies, future and pres­ence of both coun­tries are inex­tri­ca­bly linked to each oth­er. What does this mean? This means that peace and secu­ri­ty in Afghanistan will have an imme­di­ate pos­i­tive impact on peace and secu­ri­ty in Pak­istan. It also means that the eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of Afghanistan and Pak­istan is close­ly depen­dant on each oth­er.

Look at the ener­gy sit­u­a­tion in Pak­istan. It is one of the key pri­or­i­ties of the gov­ern­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Nawaz Sharif. Where are the largest ener­gy reserves in this region? Cen­tral Asia. And the only effi­cient way for Pak­istan to access them is through Afghanistan and we are ful­ly com­mit­ted. Afghanistan is ful­ly pre­pared to real­ize its own role in the region as a land-bridge, a round­about, con­nect­ing South Asia with Cen­tral Asia, and these two regions to West Asia, Iran and the Mid­dle East, while also enhanc­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty to Chi­na.

AA: Chief Exec­u­tive Abdul­lah Abdul­lah has said that if Pak­istan wants access to Cen­tral Asia, it should give Afghanistan the access to India. Do you think that is pos­si­ble in the near future?

H.E: We should be able to take con­crete steps when it comes to real­iz­ing the com­mon vision of an inte­grat­ed region. One would hope that it would be pos­si­ble. That’s what lead­er­ship demands and that’s what Prime Min­is­ter Nawaz Sharif has spo­ken about clear­ly for a long time. That’s exact­ly the mis­sion of Pres­i­dent Ashraf Ghani. It is the com­mon vision that result­ed in the cre­ation of the South Asian Asso­ci­a­tion of Region­al Coop­er­a­tion.

AA: Has Zarb-e-Azb played a pos­i­tive role in this?

H.E: You see, what­ev­er steps the coun­tries of this region but specif­i­cal­ly Afghanistan and Pak­istan take to counter the threat of ter­ror­ism and extrem­ism is a pos­i­tive step for all the coun­tries in this region. The same is true for the oper­a­tions we under­take, on a dai­ly basis, espe­cial­ly right now against the so-called “spring offen­sive” and the height­ened num­ber of attacks that we are coun­ter­ing. That also con­tributes to the peace, secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of the regions. And that’s not just in defense of Afghanistan but Afghanistan act­ing as a front­line state against ter­ror­ism.

AA: How would you respond to the claims that many mil­i­tants escaped into Afghanistan before the oper­a­tion start­ed?

H.E: There is broad agree­ment between our two gov­ern­ments that the ter­ror­ists are more capa­ble of going back and forth across fron­tiers, bound­aries and bor­ders. And states, espe­cial­ly of this region, are slow­er to respond, coor­di­nate and coop­er­ate. That is why we have a sig­nif­i­cant ter­ror­ist threat in this region and con­tin­ue to lose a large num­ber of inno­cent civil­ians. And this is why there is empha­sis, specif­i­cal­ly from Pres­i­dent Ghani that both sides need to evolve effec­tive mech­a­nisms, bet­ter coor­di­na­tion and coop­er­a­tion, so that we can go after these ter­ror­ists.

AA: Have you made any progress in coop­er­a­tion? Is this why there are fre­quent meet­ings between high-lev­el offi­cials of the two coun­tries?

H.E: The strate­gic dia­logue that has been tak­ing place between Afghanistan and Pak­istan, since the vis­it of Pres­i­dent Ghani to Pak­istan in Novem­ber, we have made progress. Now there is a con­ver­gence on the view of what the threat is, on the fact that we need to go after ter­ror­ists who are desta­bi­liz­ing both the coun­tries and that we need to go after them with­out any dis­tinc­tion. Now the task is to come up with an offer to strength­en those exist­ing meth­ods for result-ori­ent­ed coop­er­a­tion.

AA: Is Pres­i­dent Ghani under pub­lic pres­sure to show some­thing con­crete for his shift towards Pak­istan and has he giv­en Pak­istan a dead­line to bro­ker talks with Afghan Tal­iban?

H.E: I think you would agree that the expec­ta­tions and hopes of this region, par­tic­u­lar­ly the peo­ple of Afghanistan and Pak­istan are to see con­crete progress in efforts towards peace. And any step that we take towards peace in Afghanistan will have a pos­i­tive effect on peace in Pak­istan and vice ver­sa. There is a com­mon under­stand­ing and an agree­ment on the fact that Pak­istan has a key role to play when it comes to sup­port­ing our peace efforts and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in Afghanistan and it our hope that we see the tan­gi­ble progress in this are­na.

AA: At one point there was news of a joint oper­a­tion but it was can­celled. Is there a chance of that hap­pen­ing in the future?

H.E: We have nev­er had any dis­cus­sion on joint oper­a­tions. What we have dis­cussed and agreed to explore and under­take are coor­di­nat­ed or simul­ta­ne­ous oper­a­tions. Afghan and Pak­istani forces along the Durand line will coor­di­nate their oper­a­tional plans so that when Pak­istani forces are con­duct­ing an oper­a­tion on the Pak­istan side of the Durand Line, the Afghan forces are ful­ly in the pic­ture. They also are aware of what’s going to hap­pen on the Pak­istan side of the line, to make sure that there is no ingress of flee­ing ter­ror­ists and to stop them, arrest, counter or to go after them. And the same is for oper­a­tions we plan in Afghanistan. We have had high-lev­el exchanges between senior offi­cers at the two-star, one-star lev­el and low­er lev­els in Afghanistan and Pak­istan.

AA: What do you think about the claims that lead­ers of Tehrik-e-Tal­iban Pak­istan, par­tic­u­lar­ly Fazlul­lah, have found safe havens in Kunar?

H.E: Well this is a claim that is being made. You hear it. We hear it. We would like to know where this man is and where oth­er peo­ple are.

AA: Have you dis­cussed about a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion along these lines?

H.E: The moment we have infor­ma­tion about his or oth­er individual’s where­abouts, we will go after them if they hap­pen to be on the Afghan side of the Durand Line. But I need to under­line the fact that Afghan forces have under­tak­en spe­cif­ic mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, on the Afghan side of the Durand Line where there was the pres­ence of TTP mil­i­tants, includ­ing Kunar, where we have lost sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of our sol­diers, police offi­cers and oth­er per­son­nel in going after these indi­vid­u­als. And we have also man­aged to elim­i­nate large num­bers of for­eign as well as local mil­i­tants and ter­ror­ists in those oper­a­tions.

AA: Now that the Nation­al Uni­ty gov­ern­ment has start­ed a “new chap­ter” with Pak­istan, do you feel some frus­tra­tion when the Tal­iban attacks con­tin­ue in Afghanistan?

H.E: As they say, “you can­not change your neigh­bor.” But in Afghanistan, we are work­ing towards a nor­mal­ized rela­tion towards Pak­istan. In some ways we are over­com­ing the lega­cy of long years, we are over­com­ing his­to­ry in terms of the rela­tion­ship between Pak­istan and Afghanistan. Because of the strate­gic dia­logue we have a com­mon def­i­n­i­tion of the prob­lem that we con­front. Part of which is the fact that Afghanistan and Pak­istan have been in a state of unde­clared hos­til­i­ty. And we need to over­come that. We do need to sequence the actions we have to take. There are some areas we think we need more urgent action than oth­ers. And secu­ri­ty is absolute­ly one of those areas. Sup­port to our peace rec­on­cil­i­a­tion efforts is absolute­ly one of those areas- the key pri­or­i­ty.

AA: Did these efforts for “nor­mal­ized” rela­tions with Pak­istan cost you or caused a con­flict in Afghanistan’s ties with India?

H.E: Afghanistan has always enjoyed a close and very warm rela­tion­ship with India and that will con­tin­ue. Our rela­tion­ship with India is not new. It is a civ­i­liza­tion­al rela­tion­ship.

H.E: Recent­ly an Afghan jour­nal­ist asked if India has lost Afghanistan to Pak­istan. How would you com­ment on that?

AA: (laughs) Peo­ple are enti­tled to their views. You can­not, espe­cial­ly in this day and age, ask some­one not to have any views or to not give voice to their views. Those views have exist­ed for as long as I can remem­ber. The key is that the gov­ern­ment of Afghanistan has a very clear and sin­cere posi­tion. It is that we want to be a plat­form for coop­er­a­tion, for under­stand­ing, for build­ing con­fi­dence in this region.

AA: Pres­i­dent Ghani said in the 18th SAARC con­fer­ence that Afghanistan was not a ground for “proxy war” between India and Pak­istan. Is this how Pakistan’s inter­fer­ence in Afghanistan is seen?

H.E: Our stance was clear at the SAARC sum­mit. Afghanistan will nev­er allow any­one to use Afghan soil to play proxy games. We have suf­fered for far too long because of region­al rival­ries and proxy designs.

AA: Since the Peshawar School attack, 65000+ ille­gal Afghans have been evict­ed. Does this con­cern you?

H.E: First of all I would like to take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to reit­er­ate the grat­i­tude and the appre­ci­a­tion of the gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of Pak­istan for host­ing mil­lions of Afghan refugees for close to four decades, for open­ing their hearts and homes to their Afghan broth­ers and sis­ters. Afghan refugees have had the best expe­ri­ence of refugees, not only in this region, but prob­a­bly the whole world. For that we are thank­ful and grate­ful.

There is a clear agree­ment between the two gov­ern­ments on the return of Afghan refugees. There are three prin­ci­ples. Their return will be vol­un­tary, grad­ual and dig­ni­fied. No Afghan refugee will be forced to leave Pak­istan and we have assured the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan about the deter­mi­na­tion of our gov­ern­ment to cre­ate con­ducive con­di­tions and envi­ron­ment inside Afghanistan to encour­age refugees to return. The harass­ment of refugees, after the Peshawar attack, is some­thing that we have dis­cussed with the Pak­istan gov­ern­ment, the fed­er­al and the provin­cial. There has been a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in cas­es of arrest of Afghan refugees, reg­is­tered and unreg­is­tered, as well as forced expul­sions. The pres­ence of Afghan refugees in Pak­istan is a human­i­tar­i­an issue and should con­tin­ue to be treat­ed as such by the gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan. And we will con­tin­ue to make sure that Afghan refugees and the peo­ple of Afghanistan have that sense of grat­i­tude and appre­ci­a­tion.

AA: Is the Afghan pub­lic hos­tile towards Pak­istan because of these evic­tions?

H.E: In terms of pub­lic hos­til­i­ty, I am sure you read, see, hear such sto­ries in the media, but as the ambas­sador of Afghanistan to Pak­istan, what I try to under­line is that the peo­ple and gov­ern­ment of Pak­istan have sac­ri­ficed a lot, have car­ried the bur­den for close to four decades by host­ing mil­lions of Afghan refugees. It is prob­a­bly the right thing to con­tin­ue that pos­i­tive, broth­er­ly treat­ment of Afghan refugees for how­ev­er long is need­ed for us to facil­i­tate the return of our refugees back to Afghanistan. You have an Afghan refugee who has spent twen­ty years in Pak­istan and has been grate­ful and thank­ful for the treat­ment he has received, the free­dom he has enjoyed, like send­ing his kids to school. If he/she is forced to leave Pak­istan, that might not be the kind of out­come we want. I am thank­ful to some of the senior lead­ers in Pak­istan who have sym­pa­thet­i­cal­ly lis­tened to this prob­lem.

AA: Would you name some of them?

H.E: Min­is­ter of States and Fron­tier, Abdul Qadir Baloch, Prime Min­is­ter Nawaz Sharif first and fore­most, For­eign Sec­re­tary Sar­taj Aziz, Mr Imran Khan for address­ing the sit­u­a­tion specif­i­cal­ly in Khy­ber Pukhtunkhawa (KP), the Chief Min­is­ter of KP Per­vez Khat­tak, who vis­it­ed Kab­ul recent­ly and many oth­ers.

AA: India and Bangladesh have resolved a decades old bor­der dis­pute. Do you think a con­sen­sus can be reached on the Durand Line and its porous nature?

H.E: The issue of the Durand Line, its legal sta­tus and the deci­sion about its future, is not in the hands of the Afghan gov­ern­ment. It is the deci­sion that the Afghan peo­ple will have to make at some point.

AA: Through a ref­er­en­dum?

H.E: It is up to the peo­ple to decide.

AA: But the gov­ern­ment rep­re­sents the peo­ple.

H.E: In our view the Durand line should not ham­per coop­er­a­tion between the states of Afghanistan and Pak­istan about the key chal­lenges that we face and the key oppor­tu­ni­ties that we have before us. There are major mega-region­al ener­gy projects such as Casa 1000 that will bring elec­tric­i­ty from Cen­tral Asia to Afghanistan, Tajik­istan and also the TAPI gas pipeline. It is not an issue in our view and has not been so.

AA: Peo­ple mov­ing back and forth between the Durand line is not a con­cern?

H.E: That actu­al­ly is a tes­ta­ment to how deep and close rela­tions are between Afghanistan and Pak­istan. Look at the com­mon­al­i­ties between Afghanistan and Pak­istan, lan­guage, reli­gion, his­to­ry, food, good looks and mil­lions of Pak­ista­nis trace their ances­try to Afghanistan. It is some­thing that should bring us clos­er. There are no oth­er two coun­tries, no oth­er two neigh­bors that have so much in com­mon. But yet we have our issues, we are con­fronting prob­lems and there are oppor­tu­ni­ties that have come and gone, unre­al­ized and unex­plored. Prime Min­is­ter Nawaz Sharif has been very clear, about the need for peace­ful and coop­er­a­tive rela­tions with all of Pakistan’s rela­tions. He always sin­gles out Afghanistan as a key neigh­bor for Pak­istan and this in our view presents us with an his­toric oppor­tu­ni­ty, to try to trans­late our com­mon vision.

AA: How will the Pak­istan-Chi­na Eco­nom­ic Cor­ri­dor ben­e­fit Afghanistan?

H.E: Again, Pres­i­dent Ghani has been very clear. Any step that is tak­en in this region for enhanc­ing infra­struc­ture and con­nec­tiv­i­ty will have a pos­i­tive impact on Afghanistan because Afghanistan is at the heart of the Asia region. Chi­na is one of our strate­gic part­ners and giv­en the warm and close rela­tion­ship that exists between Pak­istan and Chi­na we see only sky is the lim­it in terms of coop­er­a­tion. Bilat­er­al­ly between Afghanistan and Chi­na but also tri­lat­er­al­ly between Afghanistan, Pak­istan and Chi­na, we have had some good dis­cus­sions at the polit­i­cal lev­el for secu­ri­ty coop­er­a­tion and eco­nom­ic dia­logue.

AA: You have worked with Pres­i­dent Karzai as well Pres­i­dent Ashraf Ghani, how do they dif­fer in their per­son­al style of lead­er­ship?

H.E: Well, what I can tell you is that the whole issue of “dif­fer­ences”, I dis­agree with the word in the first place. The “dif­fer­ences” between Pres­i­dent Karzai and Pres­i­dent Ghani are exag­ger­at­ed. Both the lead­ers have an agree­ment when it comes to the need for nor­mal­ized rela­tions between Pak­istan and Afghanistan. Pres­i­dent Karzai did his best when in pow­er and Pres­i­dent Ghani is doing his best.

AA: Pres­i­dent Karzai accused Pak­istan of desta­bi­liz­ing Afghanistan more than once. But that isn’t the point. You have known them from close quar­ters. So how do they dif­fer in their lead­er­ship style?

H.E: I would be reluc­tant to com­ment on that ques­tion. I would like you to vis­it Kab­ul, seek appoint­ment with both the lead­ers and inter­view them.

AA: The Afghan crick­et team daz­zled every­one in World Cup 2015. How can you pro­mote crick­et diplo­ma­cy between Pak­istan and Afghanistan?

H.E: We have been try­ing to pro­mote crick­et diplo­ma­cy between the two coun­tries. We had a very suc­cess­ful match between the Team A of both the coun­tries in Islam­abad. A lot of peo­ple watched it and it was broad­cast­ed live in Afghanistan and Pak­istan. I believe that we can do more when it comes to pro­mot­ing crick­et exchanges between the two coun­tries, nation­al lev­el but also at the lev­el of provin­cial teams. Not all match­es between Pak­istan and Afghanistan have to be between nation­al teams.

AA: The women’s’ teams may be?

H.E: Yes. Women’s’ team, under-18 team, provin­cial teams. They have been here and I have had a few meet­ings with col­league from Pak­istan Crick­et Board and it’s our hope that we will see more match­es and exchanges in the com­ing months.

AA: Would the Afghan team like to come to Pak­istan?

H.E: We would love to come, love to vis­it Pak­istan. I have had this dis­cus­sion with the lead­er­ship of Afghanistan Crick­et Board. And they were here a few days ago and I had the hon­or of host­ing the nation­al crick­et team at my res­i­dence. They would be delight­ed to come any­time to Pak­istan, as much as pos­si­ble.

AA: Are you here with you fam­i­ly?

H.E: Yes, my wife and our daugh­ter.

AA: Does she go to school here?

H.E: Yes, she does.

AA: What is the best thing about being in Pak­istan?

H.E: I feel at home. It’s a beau­ti­ful coun­try. I have tried to vis­it as much as pos­si­ble. It is a big coun­try. So far I have man­aged to go to Sindh and Gilgit Baltistan.

AA: Did you get out of the hotels?

H.E: Absolute­ly.