Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has said the parliament will take a decision on Nato supplies to Afghanistan through Pakistan. Talking to media after the announcement of a tripartite dialogue at President House on Friday, Hina Rabbani Khar said that tripartite conferences would have far-reaching effects on the region.
"The US has been briefed that no pressure would be accepted against national interests," she said. She declared that Mullah Omar is not in Pakistan. Answering a question, she said that Pakistan had allowed only supplies of food items through air for Afghan people.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Firdous Ashiq Awan also said that Pakistan would not become a puppet in the hands of any force. Tripartite dialogues would prove a new chapter in the history of Pakistan. She said that Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan are three important countries as well as neighbours in the region, adding that friends can be changed but not neighbours.
AP adds: Pakistan's foreign minister warned Afghanistan on Friday against having "ridiculous" expectations of what Islamabad could do to help Taliban peace negotiations, as talks between the two countries on the process ended in apparent acrimony. The minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, said it was "preposterous" to think that Pakistan could deliver Taliban chief Mullah Omar to the negotiating table as Afghanistan has asked in the past.
The public comments were unusually harsh for the diplomatic world where such quarrels usually play out behind closed doors. The foreign minister's words demonstrated the depth of the frustration between the neighbouring countries as the war in Afghanistan slogs into its eleventh year. Her words signaled a setback for a peace process that the United States is strongly promoting as a way to end the Afghan conflict and allow it to withdraw most of its combat troops by 2014 without the country further descending into chaos.
It's unclear whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked Pakistan for help getting to Omar during his current visit to Islamabad, and he made no public mention of the cleric. But he has called on Pakistan in the past to facilitate contact with the insurgent group's leaders. However, Khar indicated her government was still uncertain on exactly what Afghanistan wanted, saying "they have not conveyed that clarity to us."
Karzai also seemed to indicate the process going forward was uncertain. "What we need now is to formulate a policy that is actionable and implementable, and actually act upon it," Karzai said at a press conference featuring Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khar's comments came as she spoke to reporters after the press conference. The foreign minister cautioned against Kabul expecting too much in terms of Pakistan providing access to the Taliban's leaders.
"If you have unrealistic, almost ridiculous expectations, then you don't have common ground to begin with," said Khar. Khar said that any expectation that Pakistan can deliver the Taliban's chief for talks is "not only unrealistic, but preposterous."
Asked about reports that the most recent discussions between Karzai and Pakistani officials were confrontational, Khar said, "The talks were very, very useful, and if they are hard, that is fine." "We need to have some hard talks," she said.
There have been some signs that momentum for Taliban peace talks has been growing. The Taliban are setting up an office in the tiny Gulf state of Qatar in the first step toward formal negotiations. Also, the Obama administration is considering releasing five top Taliban leaders from the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay as a starting point for talks.
Karzai initially resisted the US-backed move by the Taliban to set up a political office in Qatar because he felt the Afghan government had been sidelined and not kept fully apprised of the process of getting an office established.
He said he preferred Saudi Arabia, and members of the Afghan government's peace council have said that while the political office might be in Qatar, actual talks could take place in Saudi Arabia or another location. Tension between Pakistan and the US has also complicated the process, especially following American airstrikes in November that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops at two Afghan border posts.