Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: reconciliation

reconciliation

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 […]

Dossiers Read more

Warlords, Religious Leaders, Insurgents: Three external publications

Thomas Ruttig

  For the London-based Tony Blair Faith Foundation, Thomas Ruttig analysed the relationship between Islamic religion and politics in Afghanistan through the phases of internal conflict over modernisation and armed conflict, starting with the 1970s. He starts with the analysis that Afghan society, before the Soviet occupation, was religiously conservative, with liberal urban enclaves and […]

External publications Read more

The Future of Peace Talks: What would make a breakthrough possible?

AAN

Oxus Post, 6 March 2014 Authorised re-publication of an AAN dispatch by Borhan Osman on this new website.

AAN in the Media Read more

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 […]

War and Peace Read more

Talking to the Taliban: A British perspective

Kate Clark

The deputy commander of ISAF and most senior British soldier in Afghanistan, General Nick Carter, has told The Guardian that, ‘the west should have tried talking to the Taliban a decade ago, after they had just been toppled from power’. AAN Senior Analyst, Kate Clark, who witnessed many of the events of that time, not […]

War and Peace Read more

Qatar, Islamabad, Chantilly, Ashgabad: Taleban Talks Season Again? (amended)

Thomas Ruttig

There has again been movement in the positions marking the landscape of ‘reconciliation’ or, more precisely, of contacts and possible negotiations with the Taleban seem to be moving again. A track II meeting, labelled as ‘intra-Afghan’ talks, was held in France and, before that, the so-called ‘HPC roadmap’ leaked, indicating a more active role of […]

War and Peace Read more

The government’s new peace strategy: Who to talk to?

Martine van Bijlert

After the Rabbani assassination, the Afghan government has made it clear that it intends to revise its peace strategy. It has however been very short on the details of what this might look like, other than that it needs to revolve around ‘talking to Pakistan’. The change comes in the midst of deteriorating relations with […]

War and Peace Read more

Women and Reconciliation: What are the Concerns?

Sari Kouvo

Peace is not made with friends, it is made with enemies. Peace deals are then about finding a minimum common ground and making compromises: It comes at a cost, but the price is not necessarily equal for everybody. Sari Kouvo, AAN Senior Analyst, discusses some of the key themes that came up in her meetings […]

War and Peace Read more

Better late than never: 14 more ex-Taleban delisted

Thomas Ruttig

The UNSC sanctions committee has taken 14 more former Taleban off the black list. Among them are three dead men, four Higher Peace Council (HPC) members, seven former deputy ministers and a former ambassador (categories overlap), the president of the Taleban Academy of Sciences and four low-ranking, former Taleban diplomats. AAN’s Senior Analyst Thomas Ruttig […]

Political Landscape Read more

AAN Myth Busters (II): Taleban = Pashtuns?

Thomas Ruttig

The Afghan government’s draft strategy for reconciliation with the Taleban and other insurgents to be published soon is heating up the discussion about talks to ‘moderate’ Taleban amongst Western politicians. While this discussion is useful, it is necessary to look at its background a bit more closely. German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a rising […]

Political Landscape Read more