Following a recent wave of terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa telephoned Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to offer his condolences over the loss of more than 100 lives and extend sympathies to the families of the victims. This is the third time he has tried to reach out to the Afghan leadership, by phone, since coming to office last November with a view to ending the acrimony bedeviling relations between the two neighbours. A couple of weeks earlier, he had called both the President and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah to extend New Year’s greetings. Hopefully, these overtures will have a calming effect on President Ghani who delivered an anti-Pakistan tirade at last month’s Heart of Asia Conference in India. As Gen Bajwa pointed out, the blame game would only strengthen “the elements inimical to peace in the region.”

Whatever the causes of discord and distrust in the past, it is in Kabul’s own interest to stop the finger pointing and give a positive response to Pakistan’s reconciliatory efforts. As it is, the Taliban are making more and more gains whilst internal squabbling has considerably weakened the government. If that is not bad enough, the country’s foreign aid-dependent economy is in a very bad shape. And the US President-elect Donald Trump has shown little interest in Afghanistan. Going by his rhetoric, he is unlikely to continue spending money on a failing project. Meanwhile, the peace negotiations pushed by the Obama administration have not gotten anywhere. In fact a while ago, the US held an inconsequential Afghan peace conference with the Kabul government and India, excluding Pakistan, from it. That has not made Pakistan irrelevant. What seems to be a more meaningful development in the context was the conference hosted by Russia’s increasingly assertive President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in the last week of December to which only Pakistan and China were invited. Significantly, the Kabul government was ignored. Reports indicate the two major powers along with Iran and some Central Asian states are involved in negotiations with the Taliban. Which explains why the Kabul government was not invited to the Moscow event.

The changing realities of geopolitics urge a policy rethink in Kabul while there is still time. The way forward for it is to grab Pakistan’s extended hand of cooperation and work together to fight against terrorists threatening not only the peace and security of the two countries, but the wider region. In his conversation with President Ghani, the COAS reiterated Pakistan’s offer of a joint border management mechanism, and intelligence sharing to stop cross-border movement of terrorists. That would help deal with the common enemy, and may also offer the Kabul government a seat at the table in the peace talks led by Russia and China.