THE killing of seven Frontier Corps personnel near the border with Afghanistan in South Waziristan is a grim reminder of the tensions in the region that, if not managed carefully, can explode.

Thus far the incident does not appear to have forced a hardening of rhetoric by either side, and the Pakistan military has not contradicted speculation that the attack was the work of Afghan-based anti-Pakistan militants as opposed to Afghan border security forces.

That suggests an unwillingness to allow the overall Pak-Afghan relationship to deteriorate once again — something that should be welcomed cautiously.

While Afghanistan does allege that there are continuing occasional, small-scale incidents involving Pakistani fire into eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan does complain of problems with the Afghan border forces, the overall situation between the security forces — at least along the border — appears to be much more stable compared to the recent troubles.

Yet, border incidents are a manifestation of a much wider problem: Pak-Afghan ties themselves. After a tumultuous few months, the bilateral relationship appears to be stabilising once again — but for how long and whether this time genuine and sustained breakthroughs are possible is not known.

The fighting season in Afghanistan is nearing an end; US troops are committed to remaining into 2017; Mullah Mansour seems to have established his leadership; the insurgency is wider and deadlier than it was a year ago; Pakistan insists it is still committed to bringing the Taliban to the peace table; and the Afghan unity government is yet to demonstrate it can put aside internal struggles.

These factors indicate that the possibility of an early and meaningful resumption of dialogue between the Taliban and the Afghan government seems neither worse nor necessarily better than it was earlier.

To make the unlikely possible, however, the old rule still applies: Pakistan and Afghanistan must work on bilateral ties.

Perhaps because it appears that outside powers, particularly the US and China, remain keenly interested in peace, some positive developments may be possible after all.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2015

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