Afghanistan – What’s Next?
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By Susanne Schmeidl & Astri Suhrke
September 19, 2019
Talks or not, none of the scenarios for the immediate future of Afghanistan are good.
Ten days ago, US President Donald Trump called off negotiations with the Taliban about withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan, widely expected to be followed by intra-Afghanistan peace talks, which Norway hoped to host and President Ashraf Ghani had begun to prepare for by selecting a negotiation team. The apparent change of mind by an ever-volatile US president, therefore, not only put a sudden end to nine rounds of US-Taliban negotiations since October 2017 in Qatar under the auspices of chief negotiator and former US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, but also frustrated progress on the crucial sequel.
The Afghan government and civil society, long consumed by fears that the US would strike a deal with the Taliban and leave Kabul to its fate, at one level welcomed the collapse of talks that they had been unable to participate in or influence. The lack of agreement on a country-wide ceasefire, which civil society has repeatedly called for, was of much concern, including:
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