Archive for August, 2007

The General, the Minister, and the Taliban

Posted on: August 31st, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, currently Canada’s top military commander in Afghanistan, puts it simply:[i] “I don’t talk to the Taliban.” In the same Canadian Press report, Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier is just as categorical: “Canada does not negotiate with terrorists, for any reason.”

For both comments, the immediate issue was the negotiated release of South Koreans held captive by the Taliban, but in both cases the comments were given broader context.

Gen. Laroche acknowledged that it will take more than military force to bring peace and order to Afghanistan, but he is right about not negotiating with the Taliban in the sense that he certainly has no mandate to do so. There may be tactical situations involving Canadian Forces in which negotiations would protect particular people in particular circumstances and his blanket dismissal of such an option does not generate confidence, but he is right in a strategic sense. Negotiations with the Taliban with a view to a more effective pursuit of peace and order are not up to foreign military commanders – that is the task of Afghans and the international community represented through the United Nations presence there.

And that is where Foreign Minister Bernier is certainly wrong.

Mr. Bernier is simply mistaken when he says that Canada never negotiates with terrorists. Canada has had officials present at current negotiations with the Lord’s Resistance Army to get it to end its campaign of unspeakable terror in Northern Uganda. Canada has similarly been represented at peace talks to end the war, and the extreme war crimes, in Darfur – sharing a table with the perpetrators of terror.

Canada, the United Nations, and virtually all governments enmeshed in protracted conflicts negotiate with individuals and groups guilty of heinous crimes. Minister Bernier is new to his post, but there are many seasoned negotiators in his department who are in a position to help him adjust, expand, and nuance his views.

As has been frequently argued in this space, a key measure of Canada’s effectiveness in Afghanistan will be the extent to which this country has used its presence there to encourage negotiations toward a new political consensus and a new governance structure that is understood by all Afghans to reflect and represent their best interests.


[i] Canadian Press, “”General vows: ‚ÄòI don’t talk to the Taliban’,” The Record, Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontarion, August 31, 2007.

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Getting on with “talking to the Taliban”

Posted on: August 24th, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

It was a particularly arresting headline that warranted the further search: “Taliban, US in new round of peace talks.”

Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of the Asia Times Online, has been writing a series of articles on continuing efforts to negotiate deals which he says “aim to stop violence in selected areas and give the Taliban limited control of government pending the conclusion of a broader peace deal for the country and the Taliban’s inclusion in some form of national administration.”[i] What he describes is really talks about talks, and he links the interest in negotiating to interest in the fabled oil pipeline to connect the oil fields of Turkmenistan and the other northern “stans” to south Asia and beyond, but there is no doubt that the undeniable futility of the fighting is increasingly turning heads to the possibility of alternatives.

The negotiation track has been given a significant boost by the recent four-day joint (Afghanistan and Pakistan) “peace Jirga,”[ii] by all accounts an extraordinary gathering that has inspired both hope and considerable skepticism.

The hope owes to what some consider the broad base of the Jirga[iii] – some 700 delegates that included representatives of civil society, business, tribal communities, religious communities, Parliaments, and Governments – and the agreement to pursue a peace and reconciliation agenda within the Pashtun communities of both countries aimed at curbing violence and bringing the communities into credible participation in provincial and national governments.

The skepticism owes to what others regard as the narrow base of the Jirga – the President of Pakistan was key in the selection of Pakistan participants and the Taliban were excluded – and to the insistence that it mandates talks only with those who renounce violence and terrorism[iv] (a reflection of Washington’s reluctance to support an aggressive reconciliation program).[v]

The Jirga did produce two significant results. It authorized a smaller and ongoing Jirga of 50 members (25 from each country) with a mandate to “expedite the ongoing process of dialogue for peace and reconciliation,”[vi] and President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan acknowledged at the closing session that indeed the Afghan insurgency did receive support within Pakistan (but denying it was with official connivance).[vii]

Although media shorthand frames the issue as “negotiating with the Taliban,” the point is not to seek accommodation with the Taliban as an ideological movement, but to engage the people of the chronically destabilized parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that means talking to the representatives of the Pashtun community on both sides of the border. Tarique Niazi of the University of Wisconsin argues that Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who initially proposed the Jirga and who is himself a Pashtun, regards tribal leaders as the “foundation of Pashtun culture and believes in their primacy over all other cultural and political institutions to resolve internecine conflicts” and also believes “that the jirga is the most effective tool in Pashtun society for conflict resolution.”[viii] Niazi makes a clear and compelling case for focusing talks within the Pashtun community rather than on the Taliban as an organization:

“Although Pashtuns reject al-Qaeda and its terrorism, as the Kabul Jirga resoundingly demonstrated, they are resentful of their loss of power in Kabul, which they held for 200 years, to an ethnic minority-dominated and U.S.-backed Northern Alliance. The Taliban, who are predominantly Pashtuns, are drawing on this sense of exclusion among their majority community to sustain their struggle. An ethnic balance to the current distribution of power, therefore, will help drain the Afghan resistance of energy and serve as well the long-term security interests of the Northern Alliance.”[ix]

The calls for such negotiations are not new, of course. President Karzai had earlier asked a group of former Taliban to engage dissidents.[x]The Afghan Senate has called on the government in Kabul to open direct talks with native Taliban insurgents, and for NATO-led military operations against them to stop.[xi] Last fall a group of village elders told a UN Security Council delegation that the international community should make peace with the Taliban and turn from fighting the Taliban to a focus on reconstruction. They said stability would be advanced by increased financial aid and rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.[xii] A former Afghan (Taliban) Minister, who now teaches at a university in New Zealand, writing in the International Herald Tribune, also argued last year that the international forces in Afghanistan have reached the limit of their contribution and that a new plan is called for, including renewed focus on development, greater focus on training Afghan army and police, a Muslim peacekeeping force, and in particular a new intra-Afghan dialogue.[xiii]

As has been noted here before, negotiating with one’s adversary is the rule, not the exception, in the successful termination of armed conflict and Canada should take advantage of the upsurge in the interest in talks and devote substantial diplomatic and material resources to supporting and promoting such negotiations. In the NDP’s dissenting opinion to the report of the House of Commons Defence Committee on Afghanistan, MP Dawn Black suggests that the success of the diplomatic element of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan

“should be judged by its capacity to support, facilitate and catalyze efforts towards the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Afghanistan. Specifically, the diplomatic mission should be measured by progress in building international momentum for comprehensive peace negotiations at three levels: within Afghanistan; with international players; and in the regional context.”[xiv]

That is anything but a partisan appeal. Indeed, inasmuch as the safety and well-being of Afghans depends the emergence of a new political order, it ought to be the core objective of Canada’s presence in Afghanistan.


[i] Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Taliban, US in new round of peace talks,” Asia Times, August 21, 2007 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH21Df03.html).

[ii] A tribal council or assembly.

[iii] Tarique Niazi of the University of Wisconsin described it as “that grandest gathering of Pashtun leaders since the Durand Line was drawn in 1893 to divide Pashtun territories between Afghanistan and the British
Raj.” [“Talk to the Taliban,” August 16, 2007, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474).]

[iv] “Taliban leaders denounced the jirga, and refused to fulfill preconditions that would enable their attendance, namely a public renunciation of violence and recognition of the Afghan constitution’s validity.” [ Camelia Entekhabi-Fard and Richard Weitz , “Probing for ways to engage the Taliban,” Eurasianet.org, August 16, 2007 (http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav081607.shtml).]

[v] Shahzed reports on talks by Afghan representatives with Taliban leaders in both Afghanistan and Quetta, Pakistan seeking Taliban for ongoing talks, and in the meantime he notes “it remains for Washington to commit fully to a permanent policy for a political settlement.” [“Talks with the Taliban gain ground,” August 24, 2007, Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH24Df01.html).]

[vi] The text of the Afghan-Pak Joint Peace Jirga Declaration” is available from the August 13, 2007 edition of the Daily Times of Pakistan (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IH21Df03.html).

[vii] Taimor Shah and Carlotta Call, “Afghan Rebels Find Aid in Pakistan, Musharraf Admits,” New York Times, August 13, 2007 (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30C14F73B5D0C708DDDA10894DF404482).

[viii] Tarique Niazi, “Talk to the Taliban,” August 16, 2007, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474).

[ix] Tarique Niazi, “Talk to the Taliban,” August 16, 2007, Foreign Policy in Focus (http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4474).

[x] Terry Friel, “Only peace talks can save Afghanistan – former rebel,” Reuters, April 12, 2007 http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2007/april/apr122007.html#4

[xi] Afghan Senate urges Taleban talks, BBC News, May 9, 2007.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6637473.stm

[xii] “Make peace with the Taliban, village elders tell UN,” CBC News, November 14, 2006. http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/11/14/delegation-afghanistan.html

[xiii] Najibullah Lafraie, “The Way Out of Afghanistan Is to Get Out,” International Herald Tribune, September 6, 2006. http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,435388,00.html

[xiv] Dawn Black, Dissenting opinion of the New Democratic Party to the Standing Committee on National Defence, Canadian Forces in Afghanistan: Report of the Standing Committee on National Defence, June 2007, 39 th Parliament, 1st Session. http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/nddn/reports/rp3034719/391_NDDN_Rpt01_Pdf/391_NDDN_Rpt01_Pdf-e.pdf

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Looking for compromise in the US-India nuclear deal

Posted on: August 18th, 2007 by Ernie Regehr

On August 3, 2007 the United States and India set out the details of their proposed Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy. This “123 agreement”[i] would bring significantly more of India’s civilian nuclear facilities under an international inspections regime, but it also in effect calls for the international community to embrace India as a de facto nuclear weapon state without requiring in return that India accept even the most basic disarmament obligations of nuclear weapon states. In the process, rather than bringing constraints to India’s nuclear weapons activities, the proposed deal would actually facilitate a significant expansion of India’s nuclear arsenal.

Despite the new agreement between the US Administration and India, it remains a proposed deal which will take effect only if it receives the unanimous approval of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG – of which Canada is a member)[ii] and after India negotiates appropriate safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). NSG approval would mean specifically that civilian nuclear cooperation with India would be exempted from the current provision that, with the exception of the five nuclear weapon state (NWS) signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),[iii] civilian nuclear cooperation is acceptable only with countries under full-scope safeguards. Full-scope safeguards in turn mean that all of a particular country’s nuclear facilities are subject to IAEA inspections.

In other words, India would then have the same access to nuclear materials for civilian systems as do NWS, but India is not a party to the NPT and thus is not directly bound by the Treaty’s Article VI disarmament provisions, nor is it bound by the significant additional obligations that the NWS agreed to in the context of the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences.[iv] Without requiring India to formally assume any of the disarmament obligations of the NWS, and without receiving any concrete undertakings from India regarding a permanent halt to nuclear testing and the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes, the US-India deal as it now stands imposes severe costs on the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and should not receive the approval of the NSG (because the NSG operates by consensus, a Canadian vote against the ccurrent deal would ensure that).

This is not an argument for the status quo. Under current arrangements nuclear cooperation with India is eschewed in favour of regular entreaties (including through UN Security Council Resolution 1172) for it to end all its nuclear weapons programs, place all its remaining nuclear programs under IAEA safeguards, and join the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state. Under these arrangements India has with impunity tested nuclear weapons, refuses to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and thus ensures that it will not enter into force,[v] continues to produce fissile materials for weapons purposes, and gradually builds up its inventory of nuclear warheads.

Clearly, some change is needed. The prospects for Indian (or Pakistani or Israeli) disarmament outside of the context of general nuclear disarmament and significantly altered regional security conditions are not promising, to put it mildly, and without some internationally agreed changes, India will continue to expand its arsenal and there will be inevitable erosion from the current consensus against civilian nuclear cooperation. Already Russia has signaled a move toward large-scale nuclear cooperation,[vi] Australia has said it will sell uranium to India,[vii] and the French are in talks toward a deal similar to the US-India deal.[viii] If civilian nuclear cooperation with India (and ultimately with Pakistan and Israel) is inevitable, it should at a minimum be through a multilateral, coordinated policy that gains concrete disarmament commitments from these three de facto nuclear weapon states that are outside the NPT.

The outlines of a compromise policy have gradually emerged out of the debate over the US-India deal. In exchange for recognizing the reality of India’s situation as a de facto nuclear weapon state, including a nuclear arsenal in accord with India’s minimum deterrence doctrine, the international community would no longer demand immediate nuclear disarmament as a condition of civilian nuclear cooperation but would require, a) a moratorium on nuclear testing and ratification of the CTBT to facilitate its entry into force in accordance with the unanimous view expressed in 1995 and 2000 by all signatories to the NPT, including all the NWS, and b) it would require assurances that civilian nuclear cooperation will not facilitate expansion of its nuclear arsenal.

The 123 agreement fails to meet the terms of such a compromise.

In the first instance, civilian nuclear cooperation is not made contingent on a halt to testing. In the event of another Indian test, US legislation authorizing the deal currently would prohibit continued US nuclear cooperation (for example the supply of reactor fuel), but in a slightly bizarre move, in the 123 agreement the US promises that it would advocate on behalf of India to assure it of continuing nuclear supplies from other sources even while it bans such supplies from the US.[ix]

Secondly, the deal facilitates the expansion of India’s ongoing production of fissile materials for weapons purposes. Without an Indian moratorium on the production of such materials (all five NWS currently adhere to such a moratorium), its access to foreign uranium for its civilian programs would allow it to use all its domestic uranium for an expanded weapons program.

If, as seems inevitable, India is now to be treated as if it were a nuclear weapon state, India needs to be moved to accept that new status within the context of a series of clear and binding disarmament obligations by making civilian nuclear cooperation with India contingent on at least the following undertakings:

  • A declaration by India that it regards Article VI of the NPT as the expression of a global norm requiring the elimination of nuclear weapons, and that it regards itself and other non-signatories to the NPT as legally bound by that norm;
  • An immediate moratorium on nuclear testing along with an undertaking to work with Pakistanso that both sign and ratify the CTBT within a reasonable timeframe; and
  • A moratorium on the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes and an undertaking to support the immediate commencement of negotiations toward a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT).

[i] Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act requires that any nuclear cooperation between the United States and any other country be defined through an agreement submitted to the President that sets out the “terms, conditions, duration, nature, and scope of cooperation.” Section 123 of the act also outlines some essential elements of those terms and conditions that must be included in the agreement. The text of the AEA is available at http://epw.senate.gov/atomic54.pdf.

[ii] The Nuclear Suppliers Group is a 45 nation group of suppliers that sets guidelines for trade in nuclear materials.

[iii] China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States.

[iv] India’s approach toward disarmament obligations agreed to by NWS is explored in a forthcoming Ploughshare Working Paper, “India and the disarmament obligations of nuclear weapon states.”

[v] CTBT requires ratification by all states with nuclear programs or capabilities before it can enter into force.

[vi] Vladimir Radyuhin, “Russia vows strong support in NSG,” The Hindu, August 15, 2007 (http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/15/stories/2007081561711600.htm).

[vii] “Australia will sell uranium to India,” The Times of Indiam August 16, 2007 (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Australia_will_sell_uranium_to_India/rssarticleshow/2283648.cms).

[viii] “France and India in nuclear deal,” BBC news, February 20, 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4731244.stm); “France and India hold nuclear cooperation talks,” Energy Daily, New Delhi, July 30, 2007 (http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/France_And_India_Hold_Nuclear_Cooperation_Talks_999.html).

[ix] The 123 agreement says (Article 5.6.b.iv: “If a disruption of fuel supplies [from the US] to India occurs [say, in the aftermath of an Indian test], the United States and India would jointly convene a group of friendly supplier countries to include countries such as Russia, France and the United Kingdom to pursue such measures as would restore fuel supply to India.” (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/aug/90050.htm

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