New Delhi: With Afghan officials and the Taliban on the same platform, the Moscow meeting marked the success of Russia’s diplomatic efforts to be an effective player in Afghanistan’s peace process. However, there is still no clear converging path among the key actors.

There had also been considerable hand-wringing in Kabul ahead of the meeting on November 9.

Even on the day of the meeting, the Afghan foreign ministry had issued a statement that the gathering in Moscow was “not a follow up of the previous meetings (Moscow format) held among sovereign states where the Government of Afghanistan also participated, as in today’s meeting the Taliban have also been invited”.

In other words, the Afghan foreign ministry did not want the Taliban’s presence to be accorded the same status as the Afghan government’s participation and defining the ‘Moscow format’ as an exclusively inter-governmental forum. The high peace council’s role was as a “national but non-government institution”, it insisted.

Despite Kabul’s linguistic calisthenics, the Russian hosts stuck to characterising the gathering of 12 countries and the Taliban as the second edition of the ‘Moscow format’ series.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov welcomes member of Taliban delegation Alhaj Mohammad Sohail Shaina during the multilateral peace talks on Afghanistan in Moscow, Russia November 9, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin

“The main topic of discussion was the question of the speedy launch of a direct inter-Afghan dialogue on peace in order to stabilise the situation in this country,” said the press communique from the Russian foreign ministry on Friday.

As international meetings go, it was a short one – lasting for less than three hours.

In his opening remarks, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledged that there were “obstacles” on the path towards launching intra-afghan dialogue, “including the sides’ mutual complaints and mistrust”.

He also brought up the threat of terrorism, but only to spotlight Islamic State in Khorasan. “All our countries are facing the threat of international terrorism, one of whose targets is Afghanistan. ISIS as the spearhead of terrorists, supported by its foreign patrons, has tried to turn Afghanistan into a bridgehead for its expansion into Central Asia and the whole of our vast region,” he said.

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“Foreign patrons” is certainly a jibe at United States, since Russia believes that ISIS has been planted in Afghanistan to spread its tentacles into Central Asia and keep Moscow tied down to its backyard.

After Lavrov, it was the turn of the head of the delegation and deputy chair of high peace council Azizullah Din Mohammad, followed by the Taliban representative Muhammad Abbas Stanikzai.

Overall, 12 statements were read out by the delegations before the meeting concluded after the session.

The only invitees who did not present their views were Turkmenistan and India. Turkmenistan didn’t attend, while India had sent two ‘non-officials’, in sync with Afghan government.

While former Indian diplomats Amar Sinha and TCA Raghavan sat on the round table, they didn’t make any statements as they were present only as observers.

The format of this Moscow meeting, of course, did not allow any formal discussion.

Instead, officials from the Afghan and Taliban delegations acknowledged each other and spent some time talking during the tea break and lunch. The Taliban delegates politely greeted all participants, including the two Indian ‘non-official’ observers.

Both Din Mohammed and Stanikzai were expansive in their greetings to each other – as delegates and the media took their photographs.

After their failed first attempt in September, the Russians had finally got what they had wanted.

“It is a great diplomatic victory for the Russians to get the Afghans and Taliban on an international platform. This is what they had been working for the last one and half years,” a former Indian diplomat told The Wire.

HPC and Taliban officials have been meeting each other over the years, but in closed door conferences organised by non-governmental organisations like Pugwash. But, Taliban were never given a multilateral platform with other foreign states.

While the photo-ops were striking, the gap between the delegations of Taliban and HPC remained wide, as per their statements which reiterated their official position.

In his speech, Din Mohammed renewed the “unconditional” offer of talks from President Ashraf Ghani, who had said that all matters were up for negotiation including constitution, release of prisoners and presence of foreign forces. Ghani had made the offer in February this year at the meeting Afghan-managed Kabul process.

Members of the Afghan High Peace Council and Taliban mingle at second edition of the Moscow format meeting. Credit: Special arrangement

Speaking to The Wire, Afghan HPC spokesperson Sayed Ihsan Taheri said that it was a “very good” that Taliban delegates were at Moscow. The atmosphere, he added, was “very friendly”.

Taheri noted that there was unanimity at Moscow among all the regional players that direct talks should be held through an Afghan-owned, Afghan-led process, without any direction from any other country.

“We would like the Taliban to state their readiness and announce the composition for direct talks,” he said, when asked about the next step after Moscow.

Taheri believed that there was “increased tendencies” within the Taliban military leadership for direct talks with Afghan government.

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However, at Moscow, both during in the meeting and later speaking to the media, Taliban asserted that only direct talks with US was in the offing for now.

“This government does not represent the people of Afghanistan. That’s why we deny always direct negotiations with them before we solve the problem with the Americans,” Stanikzai told state-run Russia Today channel.

This year, there has already been two direct meetings between the US and the Taliban in July and October.

The US had declined Russia’s first invitation this year, stating that Moscow format process was “unlikely to yield any progress” towards reconciliation. This time, they sent a diplomat from the US embassy in Moscow.

The heads of the delegation of Afghan High Peace Council and Taliban converse during a break of the multilateral meeting at Moscow. Credit: Special arrangement

Any talks with the Afghan government, the senior Taliban official indicated, would only take place after the withdrawal of the foreign military is decided.

The Chinese delegate at the meeting stated that Taliban’s demand for withdrawal of forces was “reasonable”, as per sources.

Iran and Russia specifically raised the need for American troops to leave Afghanistan. Both Tehran and Moscow have long been apprehensive of the American military presence acquiring a permanency in their neighbourhood.

There was no mention of foreign armies from Afghanistan’s southern neighbour, Pakistan – the critical country in the reconciliation process.

The Pakistani delegation, which was seated adjacent to the Taliban officials on the roundtable, stressed that a political settlement could bring peace only if it was “fully cognizant of and responsive to the hard core socio-cultural, political and economic realities of Afghanistan”.

When asked about the role of Pakistan, Taheri said that the right noises had been made by Islamabad, which was also reiterated during the Moscow meeting. “But, Pakistan has not taken any practical steps to support the peace process,” he added.