Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Qatar

Qatar

AAN Q&A: What came out of the Doha intra-Afghan conference?

Thomas Ruttig •

Representatives of Afghanistan’s warring parties and civil society met at a peace conference in Qatar’s capital Doha on 7-8 July 2019. They all participated ‘in their personal capacities’ in order to circumvent the Taleban’s rejection of direct talks with the Afghan government. The conference that took place behind closed doors ended with a joint final […]

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Chai ne-khorda, solh ne-mesha. Photo: Thomas Ruttig

Understanding Hurdles to Afghan Peace Talks: Are the Taleban a political party?

Khalilullah Safi • Thomas Ruttig •

Following his February 2018 offer of peace talks to the Taleban, President Ashraf Ghani proposed that they run as a political party in the upcoming elections. In 2011, his predecessor, Hamed Karzai, had offered something different, that the government would support the Taleban’s recognition by the United Nations Security Council as a “party to the […]

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A view of the quadrilateral talks in Kabul. Source: Etilaat-e Ruz.

In Search of a Peace Process: A ‘new’ HPC and an ultimatum for the Taleban

Thomas Ruttig •

Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the US – the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG) – are pushing to open a new chapter in the ongoing search for a peace process for Afghanistan. The group has now met for the fourth time, although direct talks with the Taleban have yet to begin. Earlier this week, it issued an […]

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Kabul newspaper frontpage, showing three main protagonists of the latest Taleban saga (from l. to r.; Mansur Dadullah; Rahmani, allegedly Omar).

The Murree Process: Divisive peace talks further complicated by Mullah Omar’s death

Borhan Osman •

News of Mullah Omar’s death was leaked just a day before a second meeting between Taleban and Afghan government representatives was supposed to have taken place. The first meeting on 7 July near Islamabad, in Murree, initiated the so-called Murree Process. The revelation of Mullah Omar’s death and subsequent struggle for succession in the Taleban […]

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Thematic Dossier X: Peace talks and reconciliation

AAN Team •

The flurry of recent ‘peace-related’ events – talks about talks, actual talks, denials of talks, re-definitions of peace, attacks and key figures dying – has compelled AAN to take another look at the whole body of our work on the subject. This “Peace Talks and Reconciliation Thematic Dossier” brings you all related AAN analyses in one […]

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The (officially defunct) Taleban office in al-Khor, Qatar. Photo: ToloNews.

Pushing Open the Door to Peace? Pugwash organises next round of Taleban talks in Qatar

Thomas Ruttig •

Preparations are on-going for what are labelled “non-official” talks between Afghans of “different parties.” Organised by the non-governmental academic network, the Pugwash Conference, this will be a follow up to a first round of such talks held in Qatar on 2 and 3 May 2015 which brought members of the two biggest insurgent organisations – […]

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The released Taleban inmates greeted in Qatar - photo by nunn.asia website

The prospect of peace talks after the Bergdahl deal: A Taleban perspective

Borhan Osman •

Bowe Bergahl, now back in America, and the five Taleban ex-Guantanamo detainees, in Qatar, will all be trying to get used to life after detention. Beyond the personal, what political consequences might the deal have? After years of efforts, it was wrapped up unexpectedly fast and, in the end, was a stand-alone deal, not part […]

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Bergdahl and the ‘Guantanamo Five’: The long-awaited US-Taleban prisoner swap

Kate Clark •

The prisoner swap negotiated between the Taleban and United States has seen the release of the captured US soldier, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, in return for five Taleban held at Guantanamo Bay, including one of the movement’s founders, Khairullah Khairkhwa, and the former chief of the army staff, Mullah Fazl. Much of the reporting on the […]

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Iran: open for business again

AAN •

Le Monde diplomatique (English version), January 2014 Very interesting Article by the head of the Farsi version of the newspaper (which is available in print only as a supplement to Seda-ye Edalat journal, 60/6 rue Sarve, Ave Vali Asr, Tehran), but this version is accessible for subscribers only. A German version can be read in full […]

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The Road Through Qatar: Opportunities and hurdles for a political solution in Afghanistan

Thomas Ruttig •

Central Asia and the Caucasus, 03-04/2013 In its Afghanistan-special, the Sweden-based academic journal published an article by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig. Only abstract accessible online: “While a military solution in Afghanistan has failed, the search for a political solution that includes the insurgent Taliban movement has not yielded any significant results, despite initial U.S.-Taliban contacts in […]

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The Release of Mullah Baradar: What’s next for negotiations?

Kate Clark •

It has been reported that Pakistan has released the most senior Taleban it had in its custody, Mullah Abdul-Ghani Baradar. At the time of his arrest in Karachi in 2010, Baradar was the effective number two in the movement and de facto operational chief of the insurgency. Both the Pakistani and Afghan governments have said […]

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Who Played Havoc with the Qatar Talks? Five possible scenarios to explain the mess

Borhan Osman • Kate Clark •

The bizarre turn of events following the opening of the Taleban office in Doha has led many to wonder whether the affair could have been deliberately sabotaged. Was it possible it had just been badly handled? So rapidly did the optimism about potential talks give way to bewilderment at their suspension, and the Taleban’s re-appearance […]

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