Leading Pakistani cleric prepares for pre-election Kabul visit amid strained bilateral ties

PESHAWAR: A prominent Pakistani religious politician will visit Kabul ahead of the next general elections in February, his party confirmed on Saturday, after receiving a formal invitation from the Afghan envoy amid strained bilateral relations between the two neighboring countries.
Faced with a sharp spike in militant violence and suicide bombings, Pakistan has blamed Afghanistan for not doing enough to prevent cross-border attacks by armed factions like the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) whose leadership is said to be based in the neighboring state.
The situation reached the boiling point in October when the administration in Islamabad announced a deportation drive to send all “illegal migrants,” mostly Afghans, back to their countries while citing security reasons.
Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat-e-Ulama-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) party, who has been invited by the Afghan administration, was also attacked by militants when his public rally was targeted by a suicide bomber in the Bajaur tribal district on July 30 in which 63 people were killed.
Rehman, who wants to win maximum seats from the northwestern trial belt and the rest of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has raised security concerns in the area where JUI-F has been finding it increasingly difficult to run its election campaign.
“The trip [of Maulana Fazlur Rehman] is not taking place under any specific agenda but he has been officially invited to visit Kabul,” his party spokesman, Aslam Ghauri, told Arab News. “There is no date fixed but his trip will take place after the filing of the nomination papers for the upcoming elections.”
Pakistan’s national polls are scheduled to be held on Feb. 8, 2024.
Earlier in the day, a statement released by the JUI-F said Afghanistan’s interim envoy, Sardar Ahmad Shakib, had met its leader in Islamabad on behalf of the Taliban administration.
Last month, Rehman had expressed his reservations over the deportation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan.
Speaking to Arab News, Shamim Shahid, a Peshawar-based analyst, said a number of matters were likely to come under discussion during the JUI-F chief’s Kabul visit.
“A range of issues such as the TTP, an uptick in violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces, girls’ education in Afghanistan and the expulsions of Afghan refugees from Pakistan are most likely to come under discussion during the visit,” he said. “But I don’t think this trip will yield any tangible results because most of these problems are complex in nature.”
He said it was significant that Rehman’s visit to Afghanistan comes at a time when he has complained about not getting a “level playing field” in different parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan due to security reasons.
Senior Pakistani officials, including Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, have accused the Afghan Taliban of facilitating some of the attacks inside the country.
A defense analyst, Brig. (r) Syed Nazir, said Pakistan had already summoned the Afghan ambassador to lodge protest after 23 soldiers were killed in a militant attack on their post in Dera Ismail Khan this month.
“As a seasoned politician, Maulana Fazlur Rehman understands his country’s position on security and political issues,” he told Arab News. “In the current scenario, his visit can acquire paramount importance to mend tense ties between Kabul and Islamabad.”