By Aamir Latif and Zabihullah Tamanna
KARACHI, Pakistan
For the first time, the Afghan government and the Taliban held direct peace talks during a brief meeting this week.
The introductory talks were hosted by Pakistan, a country which has on several occasions attempted to negotiate with the Taliban militants on its own soil; the most recent round in 2014 collapsed and devolved into an ongoing clash between the army and the Taliban in the norhtwestern tribal belt.
For many, there are concerns that Afghanistan's peace talks do not follow the same path but analysts say that, despite the shared named of the militants, the nature of the conflicts are not the same.
"There is a world of difference between the two conflicts and the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban," said Islamabad-based defense analyst retired General Talat Masood.
He claimed that the Afghan fighters focused mainly on the foreign forces they describe as "invaders," for toppling their regime in 2001 -- though it has also regularly targeted civilians and Afghan security forces in the past. The group reportedly made the complete withdrawal of foreign forces a condition for further peace talks during the meeting on Tuesday.
"The Pakistani Taliban are a rogue entity, which wants to topple the country' s democratic and legitimate regime through coercive measures," he said.
More than 2,800 suspected Taliban fighters have been killed since the beginning of a Pakistani army operation in June 2014. Masood says the Pakistani public have become increasingly supportive of the army, moreso than in Afghanistan.
"The level of public support the Afghan Taliban enjoy is higher compared to the Pakistani Taliban. A large number of Afghans, especially in the [ethnic] Pashtun belt consider the [Afghan] Taliban a resistance force against foreign aggression," he claimed, noting that any support for the Pakistani Taliban dried up after they killed 140 children at a school in the city of Peshawar in December 2014.
Though many of Pakistan's political parties originally supported peace talks, the December attack led to most throwing their weight behind the military onslaught which, it appears, has also reduced the Taliban's capacity to carry out attacks on civilians in Pakistan.
The Afghan government however has struggled to use military means to contain its own Taliban insurgency, which is spread through far more of the country than Pakistan, leading to increasing eagerness for the peace talks that have been pursued by President Ashraf Ghani since taking office in September.
"Some significant successes in ongoing military operation in [Pakistani] tribal areas have left the talks argument behind. But in Afghanistan, Taliban attacks are in full throttle despite a 13-year long military offensive," said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a Peshawar-based expert on Afghan affairs, noting that the Afghan government had little choice other than to negotiate.
He warned that there are still obstacles to the talks, including elements on both sides who oppose the talks and the threat of the Taliban splintering, with fighters potentially joining a new grouping of former Taliban militants who claim to represent the Syria-based militant group Daesh.
"Daesh has no strong base in Afghanistan at the moment, but a split in Taliban in case of forced talks may provide that to the terrorist network," Yusufzai said.
Unlike early rounds of Pakistani peace talks, the Afghan process has been led by the government rather than the military and also has the support of other countries, including Pakistan, the U.S. and China.
Pakistan's role in the Afghan peace talks has extended beyond hosting them. Afghanistan has long accused Pakistan of sponsoring elements of the Taliban but at the least, its influence over the group has been considered vital to the success of the talks.
"The peace talks must be started with the Mullah Muhammad Omar, the supreme leader of the Taliban, if Pakistan and Afghanistan really want to start peace negotiations," said Mullah Sayed Mohammad, an MP from Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province.
"Islamabad can bring Mullah Omar on peace talks table as he is in their custody, otherwise it will not have fruitful results," he claimed.
Retired General Mohammad Ali said that an improving relationship between the Afghan and Pakistani governments could aid the talks but it depends largely on the role of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, which has reportedly supported militias in Afghanistan for decades.
"Basically, Islamabad is on the side of Kabul, not the Taliban. Therefore peace talks must be done with the ISI, as the major conflict maker in Afghanistan in the last years," he said.
