Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: International

International

The January 2013 Obama-Karzai meeting: sovereignty in exchange for immunity

Kate Clark •

The words of Presidents Karzai and Obama, who met in Washington, are now being weighed and scrutinised in an attempt to determine what they are planning for Afghanistan over the next few, crucial years. The headline news was ISAF moving to a support and advisory role sooner than planned, with phase 5 of the security […]

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Zero or Zero Plus? US-Afghan negotiations over the war

Kate Clark •

Presidents Obama and Karzai are due to start the wrangling over their countries’ post-2014 military relationship during the Afghan president’s current visit to Washington. US soldiers, bases, training, equipment, money, immunity all need to be hammered out, although no-one is expecting results just yet. Figures floated in recent days by US government and military officials […]

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Karzai meets Obama: How will they shape a post-2014 Afghanistan?

Other AAN •

Christian Science Monitor
, 8 January 2013 AAN’s Martine van Bijlert contradicts assumptions of a post-2014 collapse in Afghanistan: ‘There is now a sense [among foreigners] that the lights are going to go out in 2014, that the sun is going to stop shining. In the early years, they had this overly rosy picture, but since […]

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Protecting Freedom at the Hindukush: Source of Famous Afghanistan Quote Dies

Thomas Ruttig •

On Wednesday, former German defence minister Peter Struck died, he who coined the controversial sentence that Germany’s security needs to be defended even ‘at the Hindukush’. Almost no other statement has shaped the Afghanistan-related discussion in Germany like this one. AAN’s Thomas Ruttig looks back at this debate and finds it being more of a […]

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A Potential Afghan Spill-Over: How Real Are Central Asian Fears?

S Reza Kazemi •

Afghanistan is bracing itself for its transition. Most foreign troops will be gone by 2014 and Afghanistan’s already controversial elections have been fixed for early April that year while peace with the armed opposition remains elusive. Afghan domestic politics aside, how is the transition in Afghanistan perceived in its northern neighbourhood, which is under-explored, compared […]

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‘Es ist ja kein vollständiger Abzug’

AAN Team •

Deutschlandfunk .de, 29 November 2012 Transcript of a full radio interview (in German) with AAN’s Thomas Ruttig, discussing post-2014 scenarios and the role the international community needs to play for stabilisation. The radio station chose ‘It is not a full withdrawal’ (in 2014) as the headline, indicating that not only many in the public but […]

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Afghanistan Conference in Istanbul: The clogged arteries of the ‘Heart of Asia’

Thomas Ruttig •

While governments usually try to keep the mood positive in the run-up to important diplomatic conferences, this time they have not even succeeded in doing this. The title of the upcoming regional conference on Afghanistan in Istanbul on 2 November is ambitious title – ‘Istanbul Conference for Afghanistan: Security and Cooperation in the Heart of […]

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AAN Year-Ender: What we think about 2010 and 2011

Martine van Bijlert •

As the year draws to a close we have asked friends, members and contributors to reflect on the year that lies behind us and on the new year that is about to start. The result is a long and eclectic list of observations, predictions, concerns and hopes. With the very best wishes for Afghanistan in […]

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Risky German Development Strategy

Willi Germund •

On Christmas Eve, a German development consultant working on a road-building project was murdered in Kholm (also called Tashkurghan) in Northern Afghanistan. The Taleban claimed responsibility for the murder. The following commentary by Willi Germund, a German free-lance journalist frequently travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan and also a frequent contributor for AAN, has kicked off […]

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Reading papers on an airplane (amended)

Thomas Ruttig •

A little press review by an analyst trying to catch up with the news after a few days off: the Obama review, terrorist threats in Europe, Dubai’s well-informed taxi-drivers, the inventors of waterboarding, a not so crazy Afghan project and Germany’s still grotesque discussion about whether that’s a war going on in Afghanistan. Thanks goodness, […]

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What comes after remembering? Some thoughts after National Victims Day in Afghanistan

Sari Kouvo •

There are days when Afghanistan’s sadness becomes overwhelming. For us, the Afghan National Victims’ Day was such a day. AAN Senior Analyst Sari Kouvo and Political Researcher Obaid Ali participated in the Afghan National Victims’ Day demonstration and commemoration. Around forty women and men have already gathered when we early Friday morning arrived at Kabul’s […]

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Obama’s War Strategy: Stamping out the fire by pouring on gasoline

Kate Clark •

President Obama’s review of the first year of his war strategy in Afghanistan is extraordinarily upbeat. “The momentum achieved by the Taliban in recent years,” it says, “has been arrested in much of the country and reversed in some key areas… The surge… has reduced overall Taleban influence.”(*) For those of us living in Afghanistan, […]

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