Time, 9 September 2021
This portrait of new Taleban ‘Prime Minister’ Mullah Hassan quotes AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, looking back at his tenure with the UN under the first Taleban regime: He also comments on the current Taleban moof vis-a-vis the international community and the new Taleban government:
According to Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the research group Afghanistan Analysts Network, Akhund was one of the key contacts in Kandahar for the Taliban leadership as well as the UN. During his time as foreign minister he gained a reputation as a choleric figure. “He was quick to blow his fuse,” Ruttig told TIME. (…)
According to Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the research group Afghanistan Analysts Network, Akhund was one of the key contacts in Kandahar for the Taliban leadership as well as the UN. During his time as foreign minister he gained a reputation as a choleric figure. “He was quick to blow his fuse,” Ruttig told TIME. (…)
“Those kinds of stories were well-known when you worked in the UN,” Ruttig said. “If Hassan has not changed his personality since then […] it does not bode well for relations with the international community.”
(…)
Yet, while the Taliban know they need international aid, they will not “bow down” to the West so easily, Ruttig told TIME. “It will be tough dealing.”
“The Taliban don’t see themselves in the position that they need to accommodate us, which is understandable given how easily they walked back into power,” Ruttig said. (…)
The new government is a “sign of continuity,” Ruttig said. “The Taliban probably want to show that this is the extension of their, as they see it, illegally overthrown government before 2001.”
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 1 Oct 2021
