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...During President Barack Obama's surprise visit to Kabul on Sunday, he was briefed by Karzai on his efforts to bring insurgents like Hekmatyar into truce talks. The White House says it favors "reintegration" of mid-level commanders but has expressed doubt over Karzai's offer to extend a peace accord to senior leaders of the insurgency...
...considered Hekmatyar a terrorist, the Hezb-i-Islami chief operates more or less openly inside Pakistan. He maintains houses for his family in Peshawar and Islamabad, and recruits his fighters from Afghan refugee camps near Peshawar, all under the watchful eye of the ISI. (See TIME's video "Obama...
...Afghan officials suspect that Hekmatyar made his peace overture to Karzai only after getting a nod from the Pakistani military establishment. Pakistani officials are keen to demonstrate to the Obama Administration that reconciliation between Karzai and the insurgents can succeed, but only if Pakistan makes it happen. That may also explain the recent arrests of 14 senior Taliban commanders in Pakistan - according to the U.N. and Afghan officials in Kabul, some of those held by Pakistan had been engaged in secret talks, and were more open to a peace deal than their hard-core brethren inside the movement...
...Pakistan is also letting the Obama Administration know that it is willing to exercise its leverage over the Afghan insurgents - but at a price, first and foremost in restoring the Pakistani influence in Kabul that was lost when the U.S. ousted the Taliban. Just before a high-level Pakistan delegation set off for Washington, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi declared, "We've done our bit ... We've delivered. [Now you] start delivering...
...Washington dutifully obliged. At the end of two days of high-level talks with top Obama Administration officials, the Pakistani delegation came away with a promise that the U.S. would hasten delivery of F-16 fighter aircraft, helicopter gunships and unmanned reconnaissance drone aircraft. But U.S. officials stopped short of agreeing to a key Pakistani demand: that the U.S. recognize Pakistan as a nuclear power, giving it parity with its rival India, which secured a similar accord from the Bush Administration. Washington officials were reluctant to comply because of Pakistan's having secretly sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran...