After an encouraging first round of meetings that Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif hailed as a “breakthrough”, peace talks between the Afghan Government and the Taliban are slated to begin in earnest this week. Pakistan, long suspected of having played a pivotal role in the Taliban’s revival, has given the peace talks their official blessing and reportedly facilitated informal talks between the Afghan Government and the Taliban in China and Qatar earlier this year.

All this reinforces a commonly-held opinion in Afghanistan: it is Pakistan that holds the key to peace. Although both Taliban and Pakistani officials deny links, recent revelations by former Pakistani officials confirm the enormous leverage that the Pakistani military establishment has over the Taliban.

Like his predecessor, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani grasps that Afghanistan needs to reach an understanding with Pakistan as part of the peace process. Thus far, he has succeeded where former President Karzai failed in bringing the two countries closer in spite of objections by many in his government, and in getting Pakistan to show a meaningful commitment to supporting peace. But unless he is able to extract a genuine change in Pakistan’s long-term strategic objectives in Afghanistan, the peace talks will likely sputter out without any significant achievements.

Pakistan’s Motives

The most pressing question is whether Pakistan’s facilitation of peace talks is a temporary tactic or a genuine shift in Pakistan’s policy toward Afghanistan?

For the moment, it is too soon to tell. It is possible that rising pressure against Pakistan from its U.S. patron—coupled with a spate of increasingly brutal terrorist attacks within Pakistan—have raised the costs of supporting the Taliban and shaken confidence within the military that the Taliban and other non-state actors operating on Pakistani soil can be kept under control.

Still, the Taliban retain the ability to carry out brazen attacks in Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan and hold more territory in Afghanistan than at any time since 2001. Many Afghans, reeling from a rapidly deteriorating security situation and the highest rate of military and civilian casualties since the beginning of the insurgency, are unsurprisingly cynical about Pakistan’s professed support for peace and pessimistic that Pakistan’s recent crackdown on Taliban militants is genuine. The recent Taliban attack on the Afghan parliament—reportedly carried out with ISI support—add to their anxiety about Pakistan’s sincerity.

What Now? How to Advance the Peace Process

Now that the long-stalled peace process is gaining momentum, two things are needed.

First, President Ghani’s critics should provide space for the talks to move forward constructively. It will take time to develop credible processes for peace and for Pakistan’s strategic calculus to shift more in Afghanistan’s favor. Realistically, Pakistan’s hardliners will resist abandoning a proxy as effective as the Taliban on short notice. They will need compelling incentives to shift their Afghan policy entirely and to start seeing the government in Kabul as a long-term partner.

The Afghan government has already made overtures to the Pakistani side with a controversial security cooperation memorandum between the intelligence services of both countries. Despite the uproar among many Afghans, the gesture appears to have sparked positive improvement in security cooperation, including unusually-strong criticism from Islamabad about Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

To encourage Pakistan to change its strategic view of Afghanistan, the Afghan government should also focus on deepening economic ties between the two countries and promoting regional integration. While there is a renewed commitment to doubling bilateral trade from the current $2.5 billion to over $5 billion over the next three years, concrete steps towards enhanced trade and economic integration remain elusive. Bringing regional actors into the discussions—particularly China, which Pakistan relies on for investment—will be critical.

Second, Pakistan must demonstrate its willingness to reciprocate President Ghani’s overtures through concrete actions, not just words. First and foremost, Pakistan will need to counter the widely-held perception in Afghanistan that its policies are duplicitous and that it is supporting some Taliban leaders in peace talks while maintaining active support for other Taliban elements. After years of mounting distrust and frustration, there is no quick solution. Only by using its influence to convince members of the Taliban to engage in a ceasefire with the Afghan government, along with a concerted campaign against Taliban holdouts within its borders, can Pakistan convince a skeptical Afghan population that its intentions are sincere.

A Unique Opportunity

By fortuitous timing, recent developments in the region have aligned in favor of the peace process. Many believe that the historic deal on Iran’s nuclear program is a significant blow against terrorism and will pave the way for Iran to take a greater role in discussions of regional security and integration. China, disturbed by reports of Uighur separatists fighting in Afghanistan, now has an overlapping interest with the United States to push for a settlement that diminishes militant activity in the region. For its part, the United States is warming to a more active Chinese role in Afghanistan, seeing it as a potentially stabilizing force in the wake of America’s military withdrawal. By working in tandem, the two superpowers can have a constructive influence on encouraging all sides to adopt an immediate ceasefire and to persist in trust-building measures that will be necessary for the peace talks to succeed.

Additionally, recent signs of rapprochement between India and Pakistan, including plans for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to conduct a state visit to Pakistan in 2016, also have the potential to transform Pakistan’s strategic calculations about Afghanistan, which it has long sought to keep out of India’s sphere of influence. While these positive steps may be fleeting, even a temporary decline in regional tensions would be helpful for the peace process to progress.

For all of these encouraging signs, the peace process is still fragile. On the eve of peace talks, the Taliban have stepped up attacks across Afghanistan in recent weeks, perhaps as an attempt to improve their negotiating position against the Afghan government, or perhaps with the intention of derailing the talks entirely. Additionally, it is uncertain how the recent rumors of the death of the Taliban’s leader Mullah Mohammed Omar will play into these talks and their development. The death of Mullah Omar raises questions about whether the Taliban speak with one voice, or are fractured. Nonetheless, the current talks are the best opportunity for peace in many years, and there is good reason for skeptics on all sides to put aside their suspicions and give the talks a chance to succeed. After years of mutual distrust, some cautious optimism may at last be in order.

Hameed Akbar was a Fulbright scholar at Georgetown University. He specialized in Global Politics and Security. He is currently working as a policy consultant on peacebuilding and statebuilding for the Afghan Ministry of Finance in Kabul.

Jasmine Bhatia is a PhD student at Oxford University. She has also been a long-time policy advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Finance.

The views expressed here are the authors’ own and do not necessarily represent those of the Afghan government.

Image: Flickr/U.S. Institute of Peace