According to media reports, the Pakistani army is looking for peace with India so that it can shift troops and resources to the Western border, with Afghanistan. The Pakistani army is making assessments of the situation on the Line of Control (LoC), and then after it will finally decide whether to shift the troops to its western border.
Over the last three months, several top officers of the Pakistan Army visited the Line of Control which is suggestive of a strategic shift as far as the Pakistani army is concerned. There are speculations that these visits are aimed at assessing the troops on the ground. Last year, in the month of October and November, Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa visited the LoC twice. Not only that, but Bajwa also supervised an exercise by the Pakistani brigade in Jhelum earlier on January 25. Further, on January 29, Lieutenant General Bilal Akbar, Commander of the Rawalpindi-based Corps, visited the LoC.
Sources claimed that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and resurgence in renegade activities along the Afghan border forced the Pakistani army to take these steps. There were discussions among the top brass of Pakistani army to buy peace along the eastern border with India and mobilize forces on the Afghanistan border, the source claimed further. In a bid to curb the movement of ISIS and Al Qaeda along the western border, the ‘friendly neighbor’ seems to have come up with the idea of the ‘peace diplomacy’.
Earlier, the United States decided to conduct direct negotiations with the Afghanistan Taliban. Reports suggest the US may have already drawn a commitment from Afghan Taliban to not allow the ISIS or Qaeda to use their territory to plot terror. This assessment of deployments of Pakistani armed forces on the LoC has come at the backdrop of US’ decision. With the idea of peace with India, it appears that for the first time Pakistan has thought of something productive.
As per the Pakistan Army, the move will help them in their fight against terror and contribute to world peace. Earlier, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the Paris-based anti-money laundering watchdog put Pakistan on its ‘grey list’ over terror funding.
FATF had warned that if Pakistan does not want to be included in the blacklist, the country needs to be “Demonstrating that competent authorities are cooperating and taking action to identify and take enforcement action against illegal money or value transfer services”. Moreover, countries which are included in blacklist are not allowed to issue government bonds through which the government of a country borrows from the international market.
It is a widely acknowledged fact that no army can win a fight if it is engaged on two fronts at the same time. The Pakistani army too can’t afford to counter an increasingly assertive Indian army on the LoC and the insurgents on its restive provinces along the Afghan border. This is the reason why Pakistan is looking for peace with India.