318: Ankara Summit: A Possible Road to Afghan Peace?
Shahid Javed Burki, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, ISAS
19 February 2014
The Americans are firm in their commitment to pull their combat troops out of Afghanistan
by the end of December 2014. As that deadline approaches, there is considerable diplomatic
activity aimed at steadying the situation in that war-torn country. The favoured approach is
to involve the countries in Afghanistan's immediate neighbourhood in helping the nation deal
with what promises to be a difficult period of transition. The most recent effort of this type
was made in February 2014 in a summit held in Ankara, Turkey, involving the host, as well
as Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, as this paper suggests, a multilateral effort must
involve a larger group of countries to obtain the desired results, and the effort should go
beyond addressing the role of Islam in Afghanistan's political system.