Kabul:
The Taliban is the same group that preferred war with the United States over handing over its friends from the Al Qaeda. It is the same group that continues to haunt Afghans. So what has led to talks with the Taliban in the run-up to 2014, when Western troops will exit Afghanistan completely?
It's a story that takes us back and forth between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and many diplomatic offices.
Hamid Gul, a retired Lt General of Pakistan's army, also known as the father of the Taliban, believes the Taliban is the victor after 12 years of war with the US and Afghanistan should be left to them. "America has lost the war and they must go. Jihad is a spirit, an unfinished revolution," he says.
By early 2002, many Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters were killed in US bombing and others sent on the run. The US, convinced the Taliban was a spent force, diverted resources to Iraq. Not until 2009 did America's attention return towards Afghanistan.
So what does the Taliban want? We get some perspective from former Taliban leader Sayed Akbar Agha. He has served time in Afghan, Pakistani, and American prisons and now lives in Kabul, guarded by his own men.
Mr Agha warns of a fate Afghanistan fears the most. "If all the foreign forces don't withdraw from Afghanistan, then there will be a civil war." He says there is no question of accepting the Constitution and falls short of supporting suicide attacks on fellow Afghans.
"Not only the Taliban, even the people who support them will not accept this Constitution. We and the Taliban only accept that Constitution that is according to Islamic Sharia," he says.
Mr Agha feels the bridge between Afghanistan's democratic government and Taliban's vision of a totalitarian state ruled by Sharia can never be bridged.
Across the border, in Rawalpindi, Hamid Gul echoes this ideology. "It is the will of the Afghan people to have Sharia, it is the will of the people of Pakistan, but they are trapped in a system, he" asserts.
In Lahore, the Sunni Ulema chief Tahir Ashrafi, makes it clear the only road to Afghanistan is through Pakistan. "America is doing
muzakarat (dialogue) with Mullah Omar and is begging the whole world to do so. I don't think Karzai (the Afghan president) is that strong that he can alone sort out issues with Mullah Omar. If we can do any
musbat (mediation), we will do it. But is Mullah Omar willing to sit with Karzai? That is also a big question."
The leverage Pakistan exerts over the Taliban is evident in the arrest of Mullah Baradar, Mullah Omar's deputy, in 2010. Despite Pakistan acquiring primacy in negotiations with the Taliban, there has been little to show for it. The only outcome is an office for the Taliban in Doha in Qatar. After years of negotiations, those released by Pakistan have reportedly joined back the Taliban's fighting forces.
Pakistan is in no mood to give up its assets, says Amarullah Saleh, Afghanistan's former chief of intelligence, who comes from the Tajik-dominated Panjsher valley. He is admired by both Tajiks and Pashtuns alike.
"Pakistan is still of the firm belief that supporting militant extremism is basically a deterrent for Pakistan. It's a cheap army, which the Pakistanis have maintained for decades now. The story of the Pakistanis using Waziris in the eastern front or western front is not something new. It goes back decades since the emergence of Pakistan as a country. The strategy of inflicting a hundred cuts is still there. They have truly inflicted a hundred cuts on the body of Afghanistan," he explains.
For the West, talking to the Taliban became a part of its exit strategy. For the Taliban, perhaps it is the beginning of the endgame.