The Taliban has lashed out at India, accusing it of playing a “negative” role by supporting the government in Kabul

In an interview to Azm, a news website, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, deputy head of the Taliban's political office in Qatar and head of the negotiating team with the US, was quoted as saying that “if the Indian government wants to take positive steps in the Afghan peace process and in rebuilding a new Afghanistan, we are counting on it, but according to him, India has been inside Afghanistan for the last 40 years. It played a negative role and maintained economic, military and political ties with a "corrupt" group instead of the nation.”

Sources here said the recent urgent Khalilzad mission to New Delhi was not so much about asking India to talk to the Taliban, as to get New Delhi to persuade the Kabul government to release the Taliban prisoners. The Ghani government is believed to be dragging its feet, presumably, as sources say, because they don’t believe the Taliban is actually interested in an intra-Afghan dialogue.

In a recent interview to the Daily Times of Pakistan, Stanekzai asserted, “Intra-Afghan cannot start unless 5000 of our prisoners are released and there would be no ceasefire and reduction in violence unless intra-Afghan dialogue starts. The US and the Kabul administration are responsible for this situation.”

In a recent press conference, Zalmay Khalilzad underscored the importance of the release of prisoners, which appears to be becoming a deal-breaker. “We have pushed to get both sides, the Afghan Government and the Taliban, to release prisoners. Already some 1,011 prisoners have been released by the government, Talib prisoners, and 253 Afghan Government prisoners have been released by the Taliban."

India’s point to the Khalilzad delegation was that India could help only if India was in the room on Afghanistan’s future. The US, according to India, has been playing the Pakistani game by keeping India out of recent consultations on Afghanistan’s future. That, according to Indians involved in Afghanistan has been the US game for years now. India has resisted US pressure before, and they say, unlikely to give up its gains in Afghanistan at this point, when the game is still open.

On talking to the Taliban, the Indian government remains cautious. Sources here say there are unofficial contacts with Taliban, but there appears to be no concerted view among the Taliban themselves about engaging with India. There are differences within the Taliban regarding India — therefore India is not going to rush in to start talking to the Taliban.

India is one of the most visible supporters of the Kabul government, both during Karzai’s time and now with Ghani. This has given India a good deal of leverage particularly when India has been kept out of regional formulations on Afghanistan’s future. To the clamour asking India to talk to the Taliban, Indian policy makers believe they have a stronger position being Afghanistan’s development partner, rather than making nice with a terror group like the Taliban, which continues to take orders from Pakistan.

The government in Kabul is convinced they would not survive if the Taliban were to take a piece of the power structure. In recent days, the Ghani government has been targeting both Taliban and ISKP positions. Taliban too have stepped up violence and refuse to consider a ceasefire before talks with the Afghan government, so as to maintain a position of strength.

In addition, the divisions between Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah have added to the inaction, say sources.

Stanekzai’s core complaint is directed against the US, which, he said had been unable to get the Kabul government to release the 5000 Taliban prisoners that had been promised as part of the peace deal with Zalmay Khalilzad. That was one of the big deliverables for the Taliban in the US peace deal. The Taliban prisoners were supposed to have been released by March 10, according to Stanekzai.

The US has gone out of its way to pin the responsibility of recent terror attacks on the ISKP, not the Taliban. Khalilzad said, “We believe that ISIS and the Taliban are mortal enemies, and in the war against ISIS, Taliban have played an important role. Of course, the government has as well, and we have played a vital role in that fight. And that fight is not finished, and we believe that our assessment currently is that the attacks that took place against the hospital and the attack in Nangarhar on a funeral procession was the work of ISIS...”

Indian officials remain sceptical — recent attacks on Indian interests, like the Gurdwara in Kabul, showed that the planning of the attacks, execution and claiming responsibility were being done by the LET, Haqqanis and the ISKP respectively. This makes it difficult for India to believe the US when it says that Taliban and ISKP were “mortal” enemies.