April 1: Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan

Turkey is hosting a key trilateral summit on April 1, which will be attended by the Afghan and Pakistani presidents and Islamabad’s military and intelligence chiefs. Ankara has been playing a critical role in aiding U.S. efforts to contain the jihadist insurgency in southwest Asia, the latest step in Turkey’s bid to emerge as a major international player.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul on April 1 will host a trilateral summit on Afghanistan. The meeting in Ankara will be attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, both of whom are accompanied by large delegations. This is a very significant meeting, given its timing — a day after a key U.N. conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, five days before U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit, and preceding the G-20 and NATO summits.

On March 27, Obama unveiled Washington’s new strategy on dealing with the jihadist insurgency in southwest Asia, which entails a regional approach to deal with growing Talibanization of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States has engaged several countries (Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Central Asian republics, China, and India) in its efforts in Afghanistan, but it is relying especially on assistance from Turkey. The same day that President Obama unveiled his Afghan strategy, his national security adviser, retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones told a gathering in Washington that Ankara “has a very special role to play in Afghanistan by virtue of its history and…its performance.” Jones added that Turkey’s role will be “critically important.”

An international consensus on Afghanistan will remain a work in progress for quite some time. Different states, given their respective influence in the country, will have their input on U.S. efforts to try to end the insurgency. But the Turks are playing a pivotal role by trying to get Afghanistan and Pakistan — who have been clashing with each other since the end of the Taliban regime in late 2001 — to cooperate. The April 1 meeting is the third such meeting between the Afghan and Pakistani leadership in the last two years.

Turkey and Pakistan have had long-standing ties, especially between the two countries’ militaries, which will be helpful in negotiations with ‘reconcilable’ elements of the Taliban. Additionally, as the only Muslim NATO member state, Ankara has considerable influence in Afghanistan, given its participation in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Though Turkish troops are not currently participating in combat operations in Afghanistan, they, along with their French and Italian counterparts, are responsible part of the ISAF contingent responsible for the security of Kabul.

Even though ethnic Turkmen in Afghanistan constitute a small minority, the Turks have considerable influence among the Afghanistan’s third largest ethnic group, the Uzbeks, through top Uzbek strongman Abdul-Rashid Dostum, for whom Turkey is virtually a second home.

Turkey’s connections to both sides of the Afghan divide could prove highly useful in the efforts to reach a balance of power between the Taliban-dominated Pashtun community and the minorities who have fought with the Taliban under the banner of the Northern Alliance. Any such power-sharing arrangement necessitates cooperation between Islamabad and Kabul, and the Turks have already made progress on that front.

The fact that the April 1 trilateral summit is the third such meeting, and is being attended by Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha the director-general of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, speaks volumes about the extent of success that the Turks have had in their mediation efforts. This is perhaps the first time that Pakistan’s president, its army chief and head of intelligence are all attending an international meeting on Afghanistan. Islamabad is facing its own Taliban insurgency and Kabul has embarked upon negotiations with Taliban elements tied to Pakistan — two dynamics that have helped the Turks bring the two sides towards some preliminary understanding on how to address the Taliban issue.

Obviously, Turkey has its own interests in playing the role of peacemaker in Afghanistan. Acting as a mediator in various international disputes is a key means by which Turkey seeks to advance its objective of attaining global player status. Between its role as mediator between Israel and Syria, and Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Turks hope to emerge as a leader in the Islamic world, which the Turks feel can facilitate their goal of securing European Union membership.

Emerging as a stakeholder in Afghanistan offers the Turks a future opportunity to regain influence in their old stomping grounds in Central Asia. But the Turks will tread carefully on this path because they do not want to upset Russia (which sees Central Asia as its own sphere of influence) because of their energy dependency on the Kremlin. It will also have to balance between Washington and Moscow on Afghanistan.

For the United States, Turkish involvement in Afghanistan not only helps with the jihadist insurgency in southwest Asia, it also serves as a strong counter to Iran, as Tehran also wants to project power into Afghanistan through its ties with the Tajiks, the Hazara, and others. Therefore, the Turkish leadership is preparing to showcase its achievements on Afghanistan to Obama at a time when the U.S. president will be returning from summit meetings where he is not getting much help from his European allies. The Turks know the more they can achieve between the Afghans and the Pakistanis, the better able they will be to capture American support for their own ambitions.