Dr Barnett R Rubin (left), Senior Fellow and Associate Director of CIC, and Dr Ezzeddine Abdelmoula, Manager of Research at Al Jazeera Centre For Studies, during a media roundtable on the future of resolution in Afghanistan held at Al Jazeera Centre for S
An international expert on Afghanistan affairs has said that dialogue between the Taliban and the US being facilitated by Qatar is likely to succeed as both parties have trust over Qatar.
“An important advantage of Qatar’s role in ongoing peace talks between the Taliban and the US is that Qatar does not have any interest in Afghanistan therefore it is easier for the Taliban to trust Qatar,” said Dr Barnett Rubin, Director at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and a leading expert on Afghanistan.
He added: “It is difficult for us to predict the future of the negotiations but we hope that Doha talks to take a new dimension turning into an Afghan dialogue involving all Afghans which will help change the character of the talks that could be successful.”
In a roundtable discussion organised yesterday by Al Jazeera Centre for Studies on the future of Afghanistan in light of peace talks between the Taliban and the United States, Rubin said that Afghanistan could not go back to its totally calm past but if it has a calm future, it would be extremely different.
“Afghanistan’s stability in the past (before war days) was based on country’s isolated status. Now, it is not isolated and will never return to be an isolated country again. If the country wants a peaceful future, the peace should be based on cooperation,” he noted.
Rubin stressed that the Taliban would continue to fight as long as they were connected to Al Qaeda, adding that the problem with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was the fear of government collapse and the return of armed troops.
Rubin also said that many countries such as China and Iran were interested in restoring stability to Afghanistan.
When asked whether US President Trump was serious about ending the Taliban war and reaching a certain settlement, or it was a step to cover up his administration’s failure in other areas such as North Korea and Iran, Rubin said: “President Trump is serious about reaching a settlement with the Taliban. He is not supporting these talks because he wants peace, he supports these talks because he wants to withdraw his troops as he thinks it is a useless mission.”
Regarding a question about the most important demand from the Taliban side during talks, he said: “The Taliban’s most important demand from US is the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and all other foreign troops.”
The United States of America and the Taliban held a round of peace talks between February 25 and March 12, 2019, in Qatar, in continuation of the last round of peace talks that took place between January 21 and January 26, 2019.
