David Pratt: Realpolitik requires us to talk with the Taliban on Afghanistan

Media-savvy and almost slick, there was something of a terrible irony in the apology from the platform about the spokesman being late given the speed of events over the past week.

Like many of my journalist colleagues who on countless occasions have been in touch by phone or message with Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, it was the first time we had ever seen his face. Like the Taliban itself there was something always shadowy and sinister about his existence.

READ MORE: Women and girls condemned once again to a nightmare by Taliban in Afghanistan

It was just before the Covid-19 pandemic while in the Afghan capital Kabul that I last listened to Zabihullah tell me on the phone how the Taliban would never rest until all foreign soldiers had left Afghanistan. But it’s pretty much a sure bet that back then even he could not have foreseen the rapidity of the endgame in that process these past weeks.

After listening to Zabihullah address the world this week it would be all too easy to dismiss his assurances that the Taliban have changed as being nothing more than a canny and cynical PR exercise.

I say this not because I believe those assurances to be truthful. I say so because whether the world likes it or not the Taliban now control Afghanistan and having to deal with them in the future is a given.

There are those who will say that the US should never have engaged in negotiations with the Taliban in the first place. The talks in Doha, such critics argue, only served to give the Taliban an international platform and political credibility that was never justified, let alone deserved.

Back home in Afghanistan’s remote provinces already under the militants control they were still brutalising and killing their own fellow Afghans, while sweet talking Western diplomats in glittering five-star hotels into believing they wanted peace and had turned over new leaf. Talking to them now would just be doubling down on that initial mistake, some will insist.

READ MORE: David Pratt: What now for the West’s failing ‘war on terror’?

Such arguments are understandable and not without veracity. But after 40 years of covering Afghanistan’s travails, and based on what I know of this nation and its people, any refusal now to engage with the Taliban would, I believe, be a huge mistake.

There are a number of reasons as to why I say this. The most obvious is that much now needs to be done to protect those Afghans most at threat – women, ethnic minorities like the Hazaras and others. We need also to work closely with the Taliban to ensure that those who want to leave and given sanctuary here can do so and are given safe passage to airports or other possible overland border crossing points that could open up.

If the Taliban is seriously desirous of ensuring Afghanistan does not become a pariah state, then it must prove by deeds not just words that its government means what is says. As European Union (EU) foreign policy chief Josep Borrell (below) said on Tuesday in the wake of the Taliban press conference, any co-operation must depend on whether Afghanistan’s new rulers respect fundamental rights.

“The Taliban have won the war, so we will have to talk with them,” insisted Borrell. “We will deal with Afghan authorities such as they are, at the same time remaining naturally vigilant. We will put conditions for continual support, and we are going to use our leverage ... to make the human rights to be respected,” he said. “I know that when I’m saying that it looks a little bit wishful thinking. But we will use all our leverage.”

These three pillars consisting of negotiation, vigilance and leverage, strike me as a sensible working strategy for the diplomacy that lies ahead in dealing with the Taliban.

Many will still attest that the Islamist group are incapable of real change, but would it not be a far more pragmatic approach to give the Taliban leadership the benefit of the doubt for now while prioritising the humanitarian concerns of those Afghans in such need of help from the international community? Let’s be candid here and recognise that this will be difficult enough even with the co-operation of the Taliban and almost impossible without.

But if vigilance is to be a watchword and key part of the strategy for the moment, then the West must also keep an eye on those regional players seeking to enhance their own influence over the new rulers in Afghanistan.

READ MORE: David Pratt: Why Pakistan’s support for the Taliban could yet bite back

There is Pakistan to begin with, which has long supported the Taliban and sought a government it can manipulate in Afghanistan. The time has come to make sure Islamabad knows in no uncertain terms that Pakistan’s continued meddling through its Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) will have diplomatic repercussions.

Then there are those other two good reasons for talking with the Taliban, the presence of Russia and China who have already started negotiations of their own with the Taliban leadership long before the Islamists took power in Kabul this week. On the face of it Moscow or Beijing and the Taliban might seem strange bedfellows, but from security concerns to economic interests, there is more in common than meets the eye. Yes, there are many good reasons why the West needs to talk with the Taliban, but right now above all others it’s the protection of lives under threat that should be uppermost in our minds.

Unpalatable as it is, sometimes the realpolitik of international diplomacy requires that we shake hands with devils. It’s not as if the US, UK and our European neighbours have not done so before across the world when the moment makes it necessary. This unfortunately, albeit with that aforementioned strict vigilance, is one such moment.