Prakhar Sharma, 'Afghan Negotiations: Fairy Tale in the Making?', Daily Estimate, 31 October 2007.

EXCERPT: "Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic society. Pashtuns make up roughly 39 percent of Afghanistan's population. Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen and Baloch are the other key ethnicities in Afghanistan. Many of these non-Pashtuns suspect that this effort towards negotiating with the Taliban is about expanding Pakistan's and pro-Pakistan Pashtuns' influence in Afghanistan. They also fear that any arrangements with the 'adversaries' would sideline or undermine, or worse, exclude their role in the political process. The negotiations will thus merely change the nature of instability, as this seems a policy aimed at realignment rather than at a peace process.

"Negotiations with the Taliban are aimed at bringing stability and peace to Afghanistan by integrating the Taliban into the political system. But the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan and Pakistan run deeper into tribes, clans, sub-clans, etc. Once the Taliban have officially regained power and legitimacy, they are slated to compete and fight among themselves for power. The mere fact that the Taliban are not one single entity and are instead a people grouped, though not unified, together for different and often competing interests, means that competition for power within the group is inevitable. It is the logic of power and not the power of logic that dictates events in Afghanistan."

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Related posts:
'Afghan Insurgency Fragmenting', 30 October 2007
'The Dangers of Negotiating with the Taliban', 16 October 2007
'The Taliban and the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA)', 21 September 2007