A Qatar-Turkey partnership has the leverage to shape Taliban ruled Afghanistan

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On Tuesday, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani during his address to the UN General Assembly urged the international community not to turn its back on the Taliban. The Emir stressed that on the "necessity of continuing dialogue with Taliban because boycott only leads to polarization and reactions, whereas dialogue could bring in positive results.”</p>
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Qatar's foreign minister Sheikh Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who flew into Kabul on September 12 and met with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund has become the first high profile foreign official to meet with the Taliban in Kabul ever since it took over the capital. It was but natural.  Most coverage of Qatar's role in Afghanistan has highlighted its  role as mediator in hosting negotiations between the Taliban and the USA, culminating in the Doha Accords of February 2020. More recently Qatar has been applauded for facilitating the evacuation of foreign and Afghan nationals who wished to leave Afghanistan. What is glossed over is the fact that it is Qatar that helped the Taliban back in Kabul . And it is Qatar that facilitated to a great extent the legitimisation of the terrorist organisation, something the gas-rich Emirate says it did at US bidding. Doha’s geo-strategic tool Al Jazeera channel helped whitewash the Taliban.</p>
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Mediation has been a major thrust of Qatar's foreign policy since 2003 when the Permanent Constitution of the State of Qatar enshrined that</p>
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Qatari foreign policy “is based on the principle of strengthening international peace and security by means of encouraging peaceful  resolution of international disputes”.</p>
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Since 2012 Qatar allowed the Taliban to open a representative office in Doha, much to the chagrin of then Afghan President Hamid Karzai. What drove Qatar to do so since in their first innings the militant group had cultivated ties not with Doha,  but with Saudi Arabia and the UAE? Qatar says it was at the request of the US. But it was also a period when Qatar began pursuing an aggressive foreign policy in West Asia, intervening in the Arab Spring, backing Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and affiliated groups like Ennahda in Tunisia, Hamas in Gaza, even as it kept a distance from radicalism within its borders. The support for the Taliban follows this pattern – supporting rebel groups and then positioning itself as a mediator.</p>
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Such support for Islamist organisations ultimately led to a split between Qatar on one hand and its other Gulf allies like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, and Egypt on the other. An economic blockade of Qatar ensued, and given its tiny population and small army, Qatar turned to Turkey – whose current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is another backer of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist organisations around the world – for its security.</p>
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In 2019 Turkey established its military base in Qatar. Doha currently hosts the Qatar-Turkey Combined Joint Force Command.</p>
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Gas-rich Qatar has also been supporting Turkey financially as the country faces an economic downturn. In 2018 Qatar pledged a $15 billion package to Turkey; more recently in May 2020 it once again pumped money into the ailing Turkish economy by tripling a <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN22W147" target="_blank">currency swap agreement</a> to the tune of $10 billion. The Turkish-Qatari alliance is therefore a strong one, and has worked in third countries,  such as Libya.</p>
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Turkey, has of course, not disguised its desire to maintain and enhance its presence in Afghanistan. It would give it a strategic foothold in the heart of Eurasia, contiguous to the Turkic world in Afghanistan's neighbourhood, primarily the Central Asian countries of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and further afield Azerbaijan. This is a union that  Erdogan has assiduously been trying to build up, while positioning himself as a leader both of the Turkic and the Islamic world. </p>
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This would work well for China too as Turkey offers an important port of call in China's Belt and Road Initiative and could provide the security China desires but is reluctant to be involved in. </p>
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Therefore, whether Pakistan may or may not want Turkish presence in Afghanistan, it may have no choice but to put up with it. Because financially it is Qatar with a $300 billion sovereign wealth fund, and not Pakistan, that is in a position to financially aid the Taliban government which has a collapsing economy on hand. Countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE do not have ties now. And while the international community has decided to continue sending humanitarian aid to Afghans, it is hesitant to extend financial aid to the Taliban. The Biden administration has frozen about $9.5 billion of the Afghan government’s reserves in US banks</p>
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Qatar had earlier done so when it extended financial aid to the government of the later deposed Mohammad Morsi in Egypt. Therefore, Qatar is also in a position to influence Taliban decision making. Furthermore, it would give it leverage over the Taliban, Pakistan, and the USA.</p>
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And with its technology and military, as well as experience in Afghanistan's Turkey is well poised to provide security, beginning with running Kabul airport, even if Erdogan has refused to take in Afghan migrants.</p>
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While Pakistan's role in propping up the Taliban is well documented it may indeed be – with reports of Taliban infighting – that its hold over the group is increasingly tenuous. But with Qatari and Turkish backing the Taliban may still have a long innings to play. </p>
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<strong>Also Read:</strong> <a href="https://www.indianarrative.com/opinion-news/why-is-taliban-spurning-turkey-s-embrace-of-afghanistan-106206.html"><strong>Why is Taliban spurning Turkey's embrace of Afghanistan?</strong></a></p>
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<em>(Aditi Bhaduri is a columnist specialising in Eurasian geopolitics. Views expressed are personal)</em></p>