Neighbourly Relations

"The decisions the Pakistani government will be making in the next few weeks will significantly affect bilateral relations for the next decades."
"We can no longer tolerate watching our people bleeding in a war exported and imposed on us from outside."
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani

In this Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015 file photo, an Afghan man reads a local newspaper with photos of the new leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, center, and former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar who was declared dead, in Kabul, Afghanistan.  (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File)

"We don't need his permission to announce our decision, and have made contingency plans for whether he says he will follow our decision or not."
shura leader Ahmad Rabbani Quetta Pakistan

"Mansoor is trying to show that he is the leader and no one can reach him on that level. [With the backing of the Pakistani intelligence agency, Mansoor] is the only one right now that has more support than anyone else for the leadership."
"With Pakistan's support, it doesn't matter who supports him and who doesn't."
Mohammad Ismail Qasimyar, foreign relations adviser to the Afghan government's High Peace Council

With the declaration in public, more than a year after the fact, of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, a succession conflict has arisen between the leadership of the Taliban and the family members of the late Mullah Omar. Whose deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was declared his successor. Mullah Omar's family insists that a proper election for a new leader must take place.

What echoes here of the split between Sunni and Shia Muslims over the succession after the death of the Prophet Mohammad! But a gathering of a thousand Taliban members have assembled for a "unity shura" in the Pakistani city of Quetta that has long been seen as a secure place for the Afghan Taliban The meeting's purpose is to resolve the crisis that has arisen over leadership.

And that official Pakistan has unofficially turned a blind eye to the proceedings enrages Afghanistan's president for the sheer effrontery and hypocrisy that it represents. When it is more than obvious to anyone seriously involved in the ongoing conflict between Afghanistan and the Taliban that without Pakistan's aid their campaign would be hobbled.

And to that end, a unity shura; a dispute resolution committee -- is to formally deal with the Taliban leadership crisis. A biography of Mullah Mansoor was published b the Taliban expressing his backers' desperation to gain support for their candidate. It is Pakistan's support for the Taliban that has earned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's accusations of ongoing and deliberate destabilization of his country on the part of Pakistan.

"Yes, our officials have contacts with them. Our officials have ability to contact and bring them to the negotiation table. That doesn't mean that our intelligence agencies have control on each and every thing," Pakistani security analyst Zahid Hussain said in objection to the accusations from Afghanistan. A series of deadly attacks on Kabul killing 50 people and wounding hundreds brought to a head strained relations between the two countries.

Leading President Ghani to express his frustration and anger at Pakistan on live television, accusing it of deliberately inciting violence in his country. His efforts to reach an agreement to work together to find a reasonable compromise in dealing with the Taliban insurgency, has failed, due to the intransigent inability and unwillingness of Pakistan to reign in its inter-Intelligence agency that has always conspired with the Taliban.

The Taliban's success, its installation as the government in Afghanistan would never have materialized if it hadn't been for the aid given it by Pakistan's government, its military and its intelligence agency, aiding and abetting and giving haven to the Islamist insurgency. Their control of Afghanistan best suited Pakistan's purpose, given to nefarious interference in the affairs of its neighbour added to its hatred of and attacks against India over Kashmir.

This is the same Pakistan that gave shelter and support to al-Qaeda, enabling Osama bin Laden to live in obscurity and comfort in a town with an established officers' garrison within spitting distance of the bin Laden family compound. The same Pakistan that arrested and charged with treason the Pakistani physician who cooperated with the United States in identifying the presence of bin Laden in Abbottabad. Waziristan Haveli