At the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov proposed to establish a Contact Group on Afghanistan under the aegis of the UN. The proposal, however, was reminiscent of an initiative put forward by Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov in 2008: the creation of a “6+3” group, which has since then not gained international support. The initiative is marred by its narrow view on what constitutes Afghanistan’s neighborhood, which tends to exclude crucial external actors from the conflict resolution process. It also fails to recognize the UN’s leadership potential in this process.
BACKGROUND: The Uzbek Foreign Minister noted at the 67th UNGA Session that intractable problems can arise in connection with the anticipated drawdown of international forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and the handover of responsibility for maintaining stability in the country to Afghan security forces. He expressed apprehension with regard to the specter of a destabilized situation in Afghanistan and neighboring countries due to the rise of extremism and growth of illegal drug traffic in the region.
In such a situation, Kamilov said, the most appropriate way to solve the Afghan problem is the creation of Contact group under the UN aegis composed by Afghanistan’s neighbors and the U.S., NATO and Russia. He stressed that the main purpose of the group should be to achieve a compromise between rival groups and the formation of a government representing the basic ethnic and religious factions involved in the conflict.
Four years ago, at the Bucharest NATO summit in April 2008, President Karimov advanced the so-called “6+3” initiative with the same composition and the same purpose. Uzbekistan’s representatives have later reiterated this initiative a number of times, demonstrating some sort of diplomatic activism regarding the situation in Afghanistan.
In fact, Uzbekistan initiated the so called “6+2” format of negotiations already in 1998, which included all 6 neighbors of Afghanistan along with the U.S. and Russia. The format was designed as a diplomatic forum for “neighbors and friends” of Afghanistan to meet regularly and discuss avenues for ending the war and establishing peace. It implied, among other things, face to face talks between the two sides of the Afghan war in order to reach some form of agreement.
The first talks of the “6+2” group were held in July 1999 in Tashkent, leading to the adoption of the Tashkent Declaration. This format of negotiations existed from 1999 until 2001 and was interrupted immediately after the 9/11 attacks, which ended all previous attempts to resolve the Afghan conflict. The very limited impact of the “6+2” and rejection of the “6+3” format revealed the inherent constraints of any regional framework for conflict resolution in Afghanistan. In this perspective, Uzbekistan’s new take on an old initiative likely faces the same pitfalls as previous ones, but the problem is not simply an issue of Uzbekistan’s foreign policy. Rather, it reflects an overall deficiency on part of the international community in dealing with the Afghan problem.
IMPLICATIONS: Uzbekistan’s restated initiative goes in parallel with other current international efforts devoted to resolving the Afghan problem. For instance, the Pakistani newspaper “Dawn” recently reported that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar and her Afghan counterpart Zalmai Rasoul would travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss the kingdom’s possible role in the Afghan reconciliation process. This initiative clearly comes in response to the recent interactions between Saudi officials and representatives of the Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami party of former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Saudi Arabia has previously been unwilling to get involved in the Afghan peace process unless the Taliban shunned al Qaeda. However, the kingdom has now agreed in principle to act on a joint request from the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The “6+3” concept includes neither Afghanistan itself nor Saudi Arabia – one of the key players in the geopolitics surrounding the issue of Afghanistan. Suffice it to mention that Saudi Arabia was one of three states to officially recognize the Taliban as a legitimate government of Afghanistan when it seized and established its power in this country in the mid 1990s.
Meanwhile, since NATO is leaving Afghanistan its inclusion in the “6+3” as a key actor may seem irrelevant. Yet, excluding the UN from a format proposed during a GA session seeks like a short sighted approach. The role of the UN’s aegis in Uzbekistan’s initiative sounds as if the UN only provides a platform, an umbrella and legitimacy for the “6+3” group but not guidance or powerful leadership. The simple UN aegis of the previous “6+2” could not prevent the 9/11 attacks or Afghanistan’s route towards a new cycle of the civil war in the 1990s. On the contrary, if the UN would take on genuine leadership in the overall Afghan peacemaking and reconstruction process, there would be no need for a “6+3” format since this would imply the recognition of Afghanistan as a global problem rather than a regional one. In this respect, the UN could mobilize international resources and impose its will upon all actors involved in Afghan conflict resolution.
On the other hand, the “6+3” concept conceals a vision that all insurgent groups and conflicting factions in Afghanistan should be dealt with as equal actors together with the government in the peace process; that is the reason why Afghanistan’s central government is not part of the formula. However, such an all-embracing approach toward actors inside Afghanistan contradicts the narrow “contact group” approach with respect to external actors. Interestingly, none of the actors included in the “6+3” scheme, except for the U.S., have so far expressed any reaction, while the U.S. was openly skeptical and reluctant to support it. Official Kabul might officially offer support for the very idea and composition of the contact group because this proposed group would if realized determine its fate in one way or another. Nevertheless, since Uzbekistan’s initiative was presented at the UNGA Session, it is officially registered as a UN diplomatic document, granting it a certain status for serious consideration. This may have been part of Tashkent’s calculation since its previous initiatives advanced from the tribune of the UN were left without attention.
Other than the Uzbekistan’s occasional initiatives, Central Asian States have come up with very few concrete proposals for resolving the Afghan problem. It is interesting to note in this context that at the UNGA’s 65th Session, Turkmenistan’s President Berdimuhammedov advanced a proposal to hold an international high-level meeting on confidence building in Afghanistan and development of efficient institutions of state power, under UN auspices. He stated his readiness to discuss the organization of such a meeting with Afghan partners, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Afghanistan, other specialized UN structures involved in the Afghanistan issue and all interested parties. That initiative is also left unrealized.
CONCLUSIONS: Tashkent’s recent diplomatic message at the UN contains both important recommendations and uncertainty regarding international cooperation on Afghanistan. The six countries neighboring Afghanistan should undoubtedly work to coordinate their strategies towards Afghanistan. But it remains unclear why this group should be complemented by only three other parties. Given the fact that the long lasting Afghan conflict is not only an internal affair of that country but also a consequence of destructive and sophisticated geopolitics of the past, the very notion of Afghanistan’s neighborhood should be perceived in a broader, not merely geographical but also geopolitical perspective, recognizing that actors like India and Saudi Arabia are also interested parties in Afghanistan. Therefore, Uzbekistan’s initiative could be reformulated as “6+X,” where the large unknown variable “X” is of crucial significance. At the same time, whatever the value of this magic figure, UN leadership in the Afghan peacemaking process is of fundamental importance.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Farkhod Tolipov holds a PhD in Political Science and is Director of the Education and Research Institution “Bilim Karvoni” in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.