Heart of Asia – Istanbul Process: Why is there a commitment deficit among the participant states?
Afghanistan has been a battleground for many years. There have been intense battles of ideologies, powers, business and even in in the sphere of who helped in establishing a stable, peaceful order. Afghanistan’s strategic locations make it an important player in international politics and its stability can greatly improve the regions stability. Different nations and organisations have different benefits to reap from Afghanistan’s stability, and hence it has emerged as a gaming arena for contesting powers to bid for making the country more stable. One such bid is led by Turkey through its Istanbul Process. Established in 2011, The Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process is a platform to discuss regional issues pertaining to security, politics and economics between Afghanistan and its neighbours. This process has had few achievements but they are not enough for it to sustain its bid in long term. In this article, I write about how the stakeholders of this process have lost interest in it. This deficiency of interest has now led many questions as to the relevance of this process.
Why is Turkey interested in Afghanistan?
Spearheaded by Turkey, this regional initiative aims at expanding the practical cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbours with a focus on poverty alleviation, counter-terrorism, addressing extremism and counter narcotics initaitives.
It has been increasingly obvious that Turkey seeks to expand its role in war-torn and conflict-ridden Afghanistan by making efforts to set up diplomatic, developmental and military engagements in the country. While Turkey has emerged as a new player in the internal realm, what is newer is its foreign policy outlook. Turkey has been more involved in Afghanistan since the US invasion in 2001. But while both the Muslim majority countries have enjoyed good relations since signing the 'Alliance Agreement', the bilateral relationship took a massive jump when Turkish President Erdogan visit the war-torn country in 2014.
Turkey being a NATO member, instead of reducing its military presence in Afghanistan after NATO's mission ended in 2014, increased its military presence and played a prominent role in NATO's Resolute training support mission in order to bring in peace in the country. But even before NATO's direct involvement in Afghanistan, Ankara has kept a close eye on Afghan politics. It established ties with several political groups in Afghanistan over the years and is especially close to the current Marshal of Afghan National Army, Abdul Rashid Dostum who also served as the Vice President of Afghanistan in the Ghani government.
Dostum is a controversial figure in Afghanistan because he was a former warlord and has been accused of many war crimes. But Turkey continues to be pally with Dostum and his Uzbek supporter, not only due to the shared culture and language, but also because Turkey can leverage its relationship with the leader of the Afghan army in near future. Ankara joined hands with Dostum in order to escape trial relating to the sexual abuse and political torture. But with Erdogan’s help, Dostum formed an opposition against the government and escaped a trial while he was in Turkey.
The Turkish President has been very clear about his ambitions. He has been working incessantly to increase his clout among the Muslim nations and has even at time positioned himself as a leader of the Muslim World. He has promoted Turkey as an alternative to Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Turkey has hosted several series of Afghanistan conferences and meetings in the past few years. Erdogan has repeatedly called for a united Muslim front and has even gone to the extent of urging Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their differences and work towards peace and stability. Ankara also played a pivotal role in leading the Afghan Peace Talks in 2015, but the efforts did not generate a success. But the fact that Turkey took this initiative means that it wants to play an active role in the peace talks, and Afghanistan's stability is of vital importance to Ankara in order to achieve its goals. Afghanistan is also a getaway for the Turkey to enter South Asia and expand its sphere of influence in South-East Asia.
Istanbul Process and its decreasing relevance
Heart of Asia – Istanbul Process is one of the initiatives of Turkey to help bring peace and stability in Afghanistan. Started with the motto, 'Istanbul Process on Regional Security and Cooperation for a Secure and Stable Afghanistan', the process focused on the usage of dialogue and confidence building measures to bring stability in Afghanistan. Since its formation, the process has been sustained through three main pillars: first, political consultation where participating countries, supporting countries and international organisations would engage in continuous dialogues for constructive solution to address regional priorities with Afghanistan. The second pillar is Confidence Building Measures, which is a platform to address the challenges and find solutions by the experts. The third pillar focuses on the cooperation with regional organisations and co-relate their efforts to bring stability in the region and support their work in Afghanistan.
The organisation has participants from almost all the Muslim countries in the world and also includes some of the emerging powers like China, India along with its long-term ally, Russia as participatory countries. It also has almost all the prominent Western countries and organisations as its support bank. But while these countries have pledged their support and have participated in the meetings at various forums provided by the organisation, no substantial results have come out of it. There exist many such regional organisations which aim to bring stability and peace in Afghanistan. The sheer number of such organisations is huge but when it comes their collated efforts, not much has been done. While all the policy frameworks look pristine and achievable on paper, when it comes to actually implementing these policies, there are many setbacks. Such is the case with Istanbul Process too.
The organisation comprises of 14 participatory states while there around 18 supporting states. Firstly, the sheer number of actors involved in the organisation dilutes its effectiveness. There have been instances when the powerful states have overtaken the conferences and meetings to push forward their national agendas and have nothing to do with the regional cooperation for building confidence and trust. In 2014, during the 4th Ministerial Conference, President Xi Jinping of China took over the entire meeting with Ghani to discuss the future roadmap Sino-Afghan bilateral relations.
The participatory states are also to be blamed for the lack of effectiveness of the process. A large number of geopolitical powers have brought in their personal bilateral issues which has made the decision-making process and thereby policy implementation process difficult. This has led to lack of funds for the Istanbul process coordination. Pakistan and India cannot agree on the decisions made on Afghanistan which has in many situations led to delays and postponements in the decision-making process. Over the years, it has made the participatory states question the relevance of the organisation. The lack of institutionalisation has left them wondering in what way the Istanbul Process will benefit them. Such concerns have just become amplified over the years and can be seen from the reducing number of high-level officials at meetings. The states now send their low-ranking officials to the meeting just for the sake of representation.
The participatory states alone are not to blame, though. Afghanistan is the permanent chair member of the organisation, but it lacks the coordination capacity to manage around 40 member states. Turkey over the years has realised this, but it cannot remove Afghanistan as the permanent chair member and cannot take over the organisation. Erdogan has made a huge show out the fact that it will cooperate with Afghanistan on all the matters and thereby not only take in their demands under consideration but will also enhance the country's image in handling multilateral organisations. However, this over the years, Turkey along with the other participants has realised that there are issues like - lack of staff, small and hampered internal support from Afghans to facilitate the process. The lack of united government and the increasing threat of non-state actors in the region has also added to the plight of Afghanistan. This has made even Turkey lose interest in the organisation over the years and has in some ways created a power vacuum.
Istanbul Process: A Way Ahead?
It is evident from Turkey actions that it wants to play an important role in the region and the only way to do that would be to prove its legitimacy of being a strong power by playing its cards right in Afghanistan. But the Istanbul Process is clearly not the correct platform to use if Turkey wants to have a say in Afghanistan. Over the years, the relevance of the organisation has been questioned by its own members. Most of the members like India, China, Russia and even the Central Asian states have started their own initiatives in smaller groups with Afghanistan to increase their clout in the region and benefit from it. Some examples of such projects are: CASA 1000 project (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan), Chabahar Port Project (India, Iran and Afghanistan), India and China have invested in many developmental projects in Afghanistan.
If Turkey wants to play an active role in Afghanistan, then it needs to have an inductive approach where it leverages its soft power with the Afghans to increase its clout. Turkey can also leverage its close relationship with Dostum to get closer to the newly formed Afghan government, especially after the New Deal has been signed. While Turkey has given foreign aid to Afghanistan, it needs to actively work on the implementation of that aid for developmental purposes. Turkey has been one such Muslim country which has constantly pushed for humanitarian efforts and access to education across the Muslim countries. These two components lack immensely in Afghanistan and Turkey needs to take a more proactive stance in such developmental projects and direct its foreign aid towards.
Turkey needs to focus more on strengthening its bilateral ties with Afghanistan via the above-mentioned approaches. Most of the countries like India and China initially developed strong bilateral relations with the country and then proceeded ahead to form small groups with Afghanistan and other states to increase the cooperation within the region. These attempts have been successful and Turkey can learn from them.
Conclusion
Istanbul Process has a bright future only if makes the internal working of the organisation more organised and stronger. Turkey has to complete several processes, which may seem small scale in comparison to establishing an organisation which wants to bring regional stability. This includes strengthening the bilateral relations with Afghanistan, making small groups or organisations with like-minded state and carry out development projects which can benefit all, leverage its soft power and relationship with Dostum to get closer to the government.
But this does not translate into leaving behind the Istanbul Process. In my opinion, it is better does few things rather than doing half-baked things. Istanbul Process seems like a half-baked thing which Turkey has started. If it does accomplish the steps mentioned above, it will give more legitimacy to the Istanbul Process in future. Legitimacy and organised internal functioning are the key to a successful organisation and Istanbul Process currently lacks it. It needs to work on building this or it would end up like SAARC, if it already has not happened.
(Pic courtsey-Ahmad Jawed at unsplash.com)
(The views expressed are personal.)
