'Kayani told Karzai to curtail India's influence if Kabul wants peace with Taliban' - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The recent arrests of several Taliban commanders in Pakistan has been received with suspicion by the international community, which believes that the sudden change in Islamabad's attitude is particularly aimed at disturbing the reconciliation process. Pakistan , however, has been denying all allegations that it wants to derail the peace process. But a senior Afghan diplomat, who had accompanied President Hamid Karzai on his recent trip to Islamabad , has caught both the Pakistani military and political leadership on the wrong foot. The Time magazine quoted the Afghan diplomat as saying that during Karzai's meeting with Pakistan Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, he (Karzai) was told that Islamabad "will nudge the Taliban into future peace talks only when the Afghan President starts curtailing the growing influence of India ." The statement clearly showcases Pakistan 's real aim behind the sudden surge in action against extremist commanders hiding inside the country. The Times magazine quoted sources as describing the Taliban commanders picked up by Pakistani intelligence agencies as being more malleable to peace talks with Karzai than a core of hard-liners within the Taliban's ruling shura (council), who are believed to have taken refuge in Quetta and Karachi. A foreign diplomat in Kabul said he knew some of the extremist leaders nabbed by Pakistan , which confirms former UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide's remarks that the arrests have 'blocked' the negotiations with the Taliban. "I knew eight of them personally, and they were all in favour of a peace process," he said. A senior cabinet official in Kabul also questioned Islamabad 's change of tactics when it was evident that Afghan Taliban leaders had made Pakistan their second home for a long time. "The Pakistanis knew every movement that these commanders made inside Pakistan over the last eight years. So why did they arrest them now, when we were starting to get somewhere with the Taliban?" he said.