LATER this week, Presidents Musharraf and Karzai will meet in Ankara at the invitation of Prime Minister Recep Teyyip Erdogan. Turkey has the best of relations with both Afghanistan and Pakistan and in that sense is better suited than most to play a mediatory role. There is no doubt that Turkey’s own interest in promoting reconciliation between Pakistan and Afghanistan is very strong.

Turkey has had an abiding interest in Afghanistan since at least the start of the 20th century. During the anti-Soviet war, Turkey, despite its proximity to the Soviet Union, was generous in its diplomatic, moral and material support for the jihad. It was perhaps the only country which granted not only asylum but also nationality to Afghans of Turkish origin who had lived for many years in the north-eastern corner of Afghanistan — the famous Wakhan corridor.

There is no doubt, however, that Turkey’s own desire to be helpful has been reinforced by appeals from Washington. President Bush spoke to President Karzai on Thursday last and, according to Afghan sources, much of the 25-minute conversation was taken up by the need for the Ankara meeting to yield more positive results than the effort President Bush had made in September last.

For the Americans, the Bush administration in particular, it is of vital importance that its two key partners settle their differences and agree on a joint strategy to combat the Taliban threat and the concomitant growth of extremism in the region.

They know that despite the “extra effort” to which the Americans have committed themselves in Afghanistan, they are not making much headway either in defeating the Taliban militarily or in “winning the hearts and minds” of the Pashtun population in the south and southeast of the country. Military experts agree that the current force levels in Afghanistan, despite the addition of an American brigade, are inadequate.

The American armed forces, however, have been stretched to the limit in terms of “boots on the ground” by the current deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. They cannot deploy any more of their own forces in Afghanistan and by all accounts have been spectacularly unsuccessful in persuading major Nato allies like Germany, France and Italy to increase their force levels or even to change the rules of engagements and allow commanders on the ground to use them in combat zones.

In Canada, whose 2,500-member contingent has suffered some 54 casualties, there is intense debate on the wisdom of the country continuing to carry an unfair part of the burden. There are increasing calls for the withdrawal of Canadian forces, even before the 2009 deadline for which deployment has been narrowly sanctioned by the Canadian parliament.

In Italy, despite the fact that Italian soldiers are not in the combat zone, Prime Minister Romano Prodi is under strong pressure to bring the Italian force home. President Karzai agreed to release five Taliban in exchange for an Italian journalist because Prime Minister Prodi claimed that he would not otherwise be able to retain his force in Afghanistan. Since he did not insist on the release of the Afghan interpreter who was with the Italian, Karzai has faced enormous domestic criticism. A similar or worse situation exists in Germany and France.

The Afghan National Army is being better trained and better equipped. Belatedly large sums of money — five billion dollars — have been provided by the Americans to buy equipment for the Afghan armed forces. It will be many years, however, before this Afghan force acquires the capability to take on the Taliban. The Canadian commander, while being complimentary about the progress the Afghan National Army had made, said that the “jury is out” on whether this army would be able to take on the Taliban on its own even by 2009.

The Afghans are bitter about the fact that there is little to show for the $30 billion pledged in assistance by the donor countries and of which some $13 billion has been expended so far, according to the figures of the Afghan ministry of finance. Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation testified in Congress that out of every aid dollar allocated by the United States 86 cents is “phantom aid” that does not directly reach the Afghans.

An Afghan expert has calculated that some $1.6 billion have been spent on technical assistance between 2002 and 2005 but there is virtually nothing to show for it on the ground. Afghans are also bitter about the lives of luxury that expatriate “development experts” enjoy in Kabul’s sea of poverty. A more concerted effort to secure concrete results from development efforts is now underway.

For the last two months, Nato forces in Helmand and Kandahar have been engaged in Operation Achilles designed to clear the area and allow the reconstruction of the Kajaki dam on the Helmand river. The power generated could bring electricity to some 1.5 million people and effect a transformation in the economic situation of the region.

Despite the much-touted effort, there seems to have been little progress. The installation of new turbines remains to be done and many claim that even if this is done the task of protecting the transmission lines and the pylons on which they are carried will be beyond the capacity of the limited force that is available.

Efforts at reconciliation seem to have done no better. The British withdrew from Musa Qala in Helmand province, ostensibly as a result of an agreement with the elders of the town under which both Nato forces and the Taliban would be denied access to the town and development work would be allowed to proceed.

The agreement broke down and currently the town is under the control of the Taliban with the Afghan government and Nato forces claiming that they could retake the town at any time they chose but are waiting for an opportune time so as to minimise casualties and damage to the infrastructure.

As time passes, Musa Qala is increasingly becoming a symbol of Nato’s failure and the Taliban’s success. Even their successful retaking of Sangin as part of the operation for clearing the area for the construction of the Kojaki dam has been attributed to the pleas of local elders to the Taliban to withdraw and save the area from further aerial attacks by Nato.

Karzai has publicly acknowledged that he is engaged in reconciliation talks with the Taliban and that he has had a number of meetings which one assumes would also involve giving the Taliban a share in the administration of the country. There does not appear to have been much progress but it has aroused opposition from many influential quarters. A new front has now been established which seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to the Northern Alliance of yore and brings to the fore the nightmarish prospect of an ethnic divide in Afghanistan.

In the meanwhile, corruption is rampant, opium cultivation and trafficking are flourishing under the aegis of influential warlords, returning refugees are given short shrift and the police and other state officials are perceived as oppressors rather than protectors. It is no wonder that an increasing number of people are becoming convinced that Taliban obscurantism — including the burning of schools and the killing of teachers — was a small price to pay for the security their reign provided.

In Pakistan, the eviction of the Uzbek militants from North Waziristan has been touted as a success for the agreements that the government reached with tribal leaders. What is particularly seen in this light is the further agreement among the tribes of the region, allowing for the administration to be taken over once again by the Pakistan government.

We should note, however, that Mullah Nazir has not publicly renounced his Taliban credentials and has even gone so far as to say that if he promised to stay peacefully Osama bin Laden would be given sanctuary. This may be no more than an effort to satisfy the Islamists among his followers who even while accepting Pakistani suzerainty are not happy with the American occupation of Afghanistan or with Pakistan’s role as a partner in the war on terror.

The point is that whatever the efforts made to turn Mullah Nazir around, much more work needs to be done in the tribal areas.

What is more worrisome is the effect that the growing Taliban strength is having on the rest of the country. It would be a foolish man indeed who did not see a connection between the Lal Masjid stand-off and the Talibanisation that is creeping from the border belt towards the settled districts and is manifesting itself in Islamabad.

The negotiations that Chaudhry Shujaat is having with the Ghazi brothers seem to be leading towards a peaceful denouement only if all the illegal demands made by the vigilantes are accepted. Would this be happening if our body politic — or more correctly our ruling body politic — had not been infected?

Here we are, a mighty nuclear power with extremely powerful security forces reduced to negotiating from a position of weakness with employees of the government occupying government-built and owned property. Here we are, unable to prevent the assembling of forces from outside the Lal Masjid for conferences and for reinforcing their armed strength.

It is clear that we can tackle these problems only when the army abandons the quasi fundamentalists and works in tandem with the mainstream political parties but even that will not be sufficient. We need to insulate ourselves from the pernicious influence that flows into our county from across the border.

We must be honest enough to concede that cities like Chaman and Pishin and large swathes of Quetta have like the tribal areas become Taliban strongholds and will remain so as long as traffic to and from Afghanistan remains unimpeded and as long as the Taliban remain a potent force in south and southeast Afghanistan.

This should be the burden of the discussion between the two presidents. Both countries need to put their own houses in order. Both need to put aside issues of so-called “principle”. Karzai may argue that obstructing free movement at regular border points does not directly address the problem of Taliban infiltration but he cannot say that this will not help.

Similarly, he can argue that he will not accept fencing but if he and the coalition forces cannot add to the 90 odd border observation posts then Pakistan’s fencing can only help. He must accept that whatever his views on the Durand Line or on respecting the traditional free movement in this area the current situation requires drastic measures and these measures should not be perceived as being designed to present Afghanistan with a fait accompli.

Most importantly, Musharraf must seek a meeting of minds on the question of tribal jirgas. If the jirga commissions of the two countries scheduled to meet on May 3 could agree to holding tribal jirgas, the partial success achieved in North Waziristan can be built upon.

(The writer is a former foreign secretary, Pakistan)