Afghan future planned without key players

At the Afghanistan Conference held in Bonn on Monday the international community approved aid for the country until 2024, while President Hamid Karzai held out the prospect of efforts towards reform in return. A commendable agreement that was unfortunately made in the absence of the main characters, writes the business paper Il Sole 24 Ore. "The two protagonists for initiating a peace process were absent: Pakistan and the Taliban. They also play a key role in the exit strategy planned for 2014 when 14,000 troops pull out of Afghanistan. Distrust of Karzai and Pakistan has reached its highest level, not to mention the tensions in relations between Washington and Islamabad. A rupture lies ahead. ... Because no Pakistani government will renounce its role in Afghanistan until the US starts treating Pakistan like it treats India. However the US hasn't the slightest intention of setting up such a pact for strategic balance. Under these circumstances the results of the conference couldn't be anything else but vague."

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