Kayani conspiring to control Afghanistan: Former envoy

Toronto, Aug 2 (PTI) Determined to control Kabul, the
Pakistan Army under General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is pursuing a
three-pronged policy, including to keep India out of Afghan
affairs, a former top Canadian diplomat has said.

In a write up titled 'The Huge Scale of Pakistan's
Complicity', a week after WikiLeaks released secret US war
documents implicating Pakistan's double role in Afghanistan,
Chris Alexander, a former Canadian envoy to Kabul, said, "The
Pakistan army under Gen Kayani is sponsoring a large-scale,
covert guerrilla war through Afghan proxies."
"Their mission in Afghanistan is to keep Pashtun
nationalism down, India out and Mr (Hamid) Karzai weak,"
Alexander, who was also the Deputy Special Representative of
the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009
said.
According to Alexander, Kayani told the Afghan
President this spring that the condition for peace in
Afghanistan would be the closing of several Indian consulates,
while offering to broker deals with Islamic Emirate leaders,
whom he considers a "strategic asset", the Globe and Mail
newspaper reported.
Kayani also told a Washington audience that he
remained wedded to "strategic depth" – that is, to making
Afghanistan the kind of proprietary hinterland for Pakistan,
free of Indian or other outside influence, which it was from
1992 to 2001.
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan are now in the grip of a
single escalating conflict. As a direct consequence,
reconciliation has failed to get off the ground: the
Pakistan-based Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – the official
name for the Taliban and its allies – clearly prefer to fight,
he said.
There is, however, at least one genuine insight: the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the branch of Pakistan's
military charged with most aspects of its Afghan policy – as
the main driver of the conflict, he added.
General Kayani and others will deny complicity. But as
the WikiLeaks material demonstrates, their heavy-handed
involvement is now obvious at all levels, Alexander said,
adding that without Pakistani military support, the Islamic
Emirate's combat units would collapse like a house of cards.
Peace and reconciliation would prosper.
So long as this unholy alliance continues, Afghans
will continue to succumb to the mistaken view that the US and
its allies are deliberately turning a blind eye to Taliban
resurgence, despite our sacrifices to date.
Pakistan's army's interference in Afghanistan's
recovery violates a key provision of the UN Charter, on
non-interference – and at its new scale, it represents a
threat to international peace and security. It deserves
serious discussion in multilateral forums, including the UN,
Alexander said.
Turning the corner on this issue will require a
concerted show of will – and much tougher action in the eyes
of the new storm of violence in North Waziristan and
Baluchistan. PTI NSA
MYR