Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is an interesting figure. He was a major insurgent leader during the Soviet days, one of our's and Pakistan's top guys fighting the Communists. He then briefly became Prime Minister during the civil war and ordered Kabul shelled. The Taliban drove him out of power, out of Afghanistan, and into exile. But he re-emerged as an ally of the Taliban with his base in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. It's fair to assume that Pakistan's intelligence service(ISI) considers him an asset.
While he commands the smallest of the three insurgent factions(after Mullah Omar and the Haqqani Network), he is still a major insurgent leader. That's why it is good news when a report surfaces that he's in tentative talks with the government.
McClatchy has the scoop. Of significance is an apparent willingness by Hekmatyar to tolerate the presence of foreign troops for 18 months. Problematic is his apparent desire for there to be an interim government of Afghanistan, followed by a loya jirga to create a new constitution- something many in Kabul are understandably-leery over. Nonetheless, it is reassuring that one of the main chiefs has softened his position; something that may not have been possible if U.S. President Barack Obama had not proposed some kind of time-line for the U.S. presence in Afghanistan.
"He (Hekmatyar) is ready for reconciliation," said Khalid Farooqi, a senior member of parliament for Hezb-i-Islami. "There are talks between him and the government, but I don't know the result."
While these talks appear to be at the beginning stage they are, nonetheless, a step in the right direction. What it will really come down to is how hard Hekmatyar's allies in Pakistan will push him to make peace with the Afghan government. His base has long been Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan near the now bomb-scarred city of Peshawar; perhaps the sea-change in public opinion towards the Taliban there is having a ground-up effect on his organization.
Still a long way to go but still a step in the right direction. Let's hope it's not the last.