Explaining sanctions on Afghan Taliban
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Eyebrows were raised and questions asked when Pakistan recently issued orders to enforce the 2015 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions against leaders of the Afghan Taliban and other militants at a time when a high-level delegation of the insurgent group was visiting Islamabad to discuss the Afghan peace process.
Critics wondered why Pakistan sanctioned 88 Taliban and Haqqani network members as well as other militants at a time when hectic diplomatic efforts were being made by Islamabad and other stakeholders to facilitate the intra-Afghan peace talks.
Inviting the Taliban delegation for talks risked criticism. Yet, Pakistan seemingly wanted to send a strong message that it was committed to playing the role of a key facilitator in the intra-Afghan peace negotiations. It would have been embarrassing for Pakistan if the delegation’s head, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who is also the deputy leader of the Taliban movement and head of its political commission office in Qatar, was asked not to come to the country or turned back along with the other five prominent delegation members. Also, unlike the past, the Afghan government did not object to the visit while the US must have been on board as Islamabad’s effort was meant to remove hurdles delaying the start of the intra-Afghan dialogue.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry issued the order to impose sanctions on August 18, though its notification caught public attention on August 22. It is not clear if the order was deliberately kept hidden from the media to avoid its possible negative impact on the upcoming visit of the six-member Taliban delegation to Pakistan. However, it started making headlines and generating controversy after it appeared in the media, making the Pakistan government, Taliban and others respond to probing questions by journalists.
The foreign ministry posted the “statutory notification” (SRO) on its website which read: “The federal government is pleased to order that the [UNSC] Resolution 2255 (2015) be fully implemented, including in particular that individuals and entities listed … shall stand subjected to the asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo in accordance with the aforesaid resolutions.”
Some critics claim that the order to strictly implement old sanctions at this point is meant to push the Taliban to join the intra-Afghan negotiations. While the insurgent group has made it clear that there will not be any intra-Afghan dialogue unless the US-Taliban deal, including the exchange of 6,000 prisoners, is fully implemented, Pakistani officials remain hopeful that a way around this obstacle can be found for the long-delayed talks to begin
Rahimullah Yusufzai
The emphasis was on the phrase “full implementation” of the UNSC resolution and “consolidating and documenting” the previously announced SROs as a procedural measure. Downplaying the significance of the order, the foreign ministry argued that the UN Security Council’s mandatory sanctions against the Taliban had been in place for a long time. Islamabad insisted that the order did not reflect any change in the sanctions list or measures. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, who hosted the Taliban delegation, argued that it had been invited to Pakistan and the peace process would not be affected by the sanctions. A Taliban spokesman, however, pointed out that while these were not new sanctions, reinforcing them at a time when Taliban negotiators were expected to travel for intra-Afghan negotiations could hamper the peace talks. Obviously, no big or small power would want the Taliban to pull out of the peace process since hopes for intra-Afghan dialogue have never been so bright in the past.
However, critics attributed a different meaning to the order issued by Pakistan at this juncture. One argument was that the notification was made ahead of a crucial meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international financial watchdog that seeks to curb money laundering and terror financing around the world. Pakistan has been under pressure from the FATF to initiate administrative and legislative measures to fully comply with the 27-point program agreed upon by both sides. Pakistan recently took certain decisions that improved its compliance level and raised hopes that it would be removed from the FATF grey list and avoid its complete blacklisting which may entail devastating consequences for the country’s already fragile economy.
Some critics also felt the order of strictly enforcing old sanctions at this point was meant to push the Taliban to join the intra-Afghan negotiations. Although the Taliban made it clear that there would not be any intra-Afghan dialogue unless the US-Taliban deal, including the exchange of 6,000 prisoners, is fully implemented, Pakistani officials remain hopeful that a way around this obstacle can be found for the long-delayed talks to begin.
One official, requesting anonymity, remarked rather optimistically after the recent visit of the Taliban delegation to Islamabad that “we are at the cusp of a breakthrough.” However, the Afghan government is yet to free the remaining 320 Taliban prisoners under the Doha agreement and has described them as a danger to the world by belatedly citing objections by France and Australia to the release of about six of the Taliban fighters who killed their soldiers who were deployed in Afghanistan. Kabul is now talking to the French and Australian government to resolve the issue.
Pakistan succeeded last October in arranging a meeting in Islamabad between a Taliban delegation led by Baradar and Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy for Afghan reconciliation. The meeting achieved a breakthrough as the two sides agreed to resume the suspended peace talks, which eventually led to the Doha deal of February 29, 2020. Pakistan is hoping for a similar breakthrough by cajoling and pressuring the rather stubborn Taliban leadership, even though it alone cannot achieve much because the Afghan government too needs to be made aware of the pitfalls if this historic opportunity for peace is missed.
*Rahimullah Yusufzai is a senior political and security analyst in Pakistan. He was the first to interview Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar and twice interviewed Osama Bin Laden in 1998. Twitter: @rahimyusufzai1
