ANALYSIS

"It is an astonishing step for Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), which has long accused its opposite numbers at the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI) of practically directing the Taliban insurgency. It is also the most dramatic gesture yet by Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president who came to power last year determined to win Islamabad’s help in brokering peace talks with the Taliban by offering concessions that would have been unthinkable under his predecessor, Hamid Karzai," write Jon Boone and Sune Engel Rasmussen in the Guardian.

"Ghani’s political calculus depends on Pakistan’s willingness and ability to push the Taliban to negotiate seriously. This is surely a high-risk strategy because of Pakistan’s traditional spoiling role in Afghanistan. But a more worrying concern is that even if Pakistan had the desire, it lacks the ability to force the Taliban to make a deal that the insurgency considers to be against its interest," write Scott Smith and Moeed Yusuf in Foreign Policy.

"New Delhi is watching President Ghani’s high-stakes peace gamble warily from the sidelines—concerned that it could spark off rebellion from leaders of ethnic minority groups in the country, as well as anti-Pakistan Pashtuns, undermining the country’s fragile polity," writes Praveen Swami in the Indian Express.