 Okay, welcome everyone. This is welcome to King's College London. Welcome to the first week back in classes. Welcome to the new academic term. So my name is Christine Chang and I am a senior lecturer in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. And I teach on the. Masters in conflict security and development to those of you who are in our new program special welcome to all of you. I'm really glad to have you in London. Really good to see you all in person for the 1st time in a very, very long time. So this is a panel on the future of Afghanistan and really amazing people here joining us today to have this. Difficult conversation and I promise you it will be. A difficult conversation, but an honest and as I promised you in. In advertising it a brutally honest 1 so so. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this and I wanted to thank Abdullah who Johnny who's on our panel for helping me. Co convene this and it basically came out of a dinner that we had and some conversations and we felt it was really important to. To bring out some some different Afghan voices into this conversation that. Haven't really been amplified as much as we would have liked so. I'm really grateful to Abdullah for getting this going together with me. And so I just, I think I feel like I should set the scene a little bit and before I do any of that actually there's, there are a couple of people that I really want to send a big thank you to. The, the Petersons are, I think, online with us somewhere in this crowd. So, Christian Peterson, Effie Salida. And their daughter Lydia. Thank you so much. So for those of you who don't know about the Peter sins. We have two Peterson scholars with us who are former alumni of the scholarship program and the scholarship was established actually for in a very sad way. Because it's named after the Petersons son Alexandra's who was killed in in Kabul in in a bombing. So the scholarship was named in commemoration of him and. One of the things that has come out of that obviously is we've had many amazing students come through our program to whom are here today speaking on our panel. So, it feels almost like a full circle that in many ways. So, I wanted to say a shout out to them. Thank you very much. And in many ways, this panel would be possible without you and it certainly wouldn't be as rich without the help and support that you've given. And just to say a few words about something we've seen for today, I mean, we've all thought a lot about what has happened in the past month and a half or so. Some of the people on our panel are lucky to be alive, frankly, today, and, and I'm grateful to have them here and in one piece and wholly intact to be able to talk to us. I, you know, I think all of us have many different emotions as we've been thinking through what has been happening in Afghanistan, and the past 20 years of involvement and intervention and invasion. And then now we're back to the Taliban taking over the country again. So, I think we're here today really just to talk about the future. And I've set a few questions for our speakers today to think about, I'll put them into the chat for all of you afterwards as well. The three things that I've, the three questions that I've posed to them are, well, the first one is, what are the most likely scenarios for the future of Afghanistan and I've asked them to feel free to focus on Taliban rule on the security situation, the economic collapse, terrorism, human rights, women's rights, whatever it is they feel like speaking about specifically. And the second question is really, how should the Western policy community respond to these scenarios? How about the UN, and how about other external actors outside the West, like China, like Russia, Iran, Pakistan. So I'll let them to pick and choose amongst those as they please. And then the last question is a more general line. And it's about the lessons that we've learned. So what lessons should external actors draw from the Afghan experience over the past 20 years. So the three of them are welcome to answer any, all, or none of these questions as they so wish. And we'll speak for about 10 minutes each. And then we'll go to a big Q&A. Everybody's being recorded right now. So if you have an objection to being recorded, you might want to, you know, not raise your hand and say anything that you wouldn't want to have recorded. If you do want to ask questions, you can do so in the Q&A box at the bottom. So feel free to pop in your questions as we go along. Feel free also to comment on things as we go along. This is going to be, and I ask you all to be respectful in the seminar. I know it's going to touch on some really difficult things at times. And if the situation gets a bit dicey, I will be the ruthless chair that people know I am and I will either mute you or if it gets too bad, then we will ask you to leave or actually just kick you out of the seminar. So just just be mindful, please be respectful in your tone and how you address people and and with your questions as well. So, yeah, having said that, on a on a cheerier note, I think we can just about get started. I am going to give the speakers a two minute warning. The speaking order will start with Flaten and then we'll go to Najib and then we'll go to Nargis and then Abdullah. We'd really welcome your interventions and I will invite you all to actually come in online with your questions by inviting you to be panelists and then you can ask the questions directly to the panelists yourself in the Q&A section. So when we get to that be prepared I will I will call on you if you if you want to if you don't want to be called and just specify that when you put down your question okay. I'm looking for lots of good interaction, a good genuine discussion, and hopefully really getting to a heart of some of these really difficult issues. Okay, now I get to actually introduce my amazing speakers. So, Professor Flaten Gosin is currently a distinguished professor in the School of Government and Public Policy and Faculty in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. She holds the Melody S. Robidu Foundation Fund Professorship. She's received several research awards, including a Minerva initiative funded by the Department of Defense and the U.S. Army Research Office. And Flaten's research current research focuses on enemy images as obstacles to cooperation, ethics and field work, forced migration and transitional justice, and she specializes in looking at Afghanistan so I'm really delighted to have her here with us. Our second speaker, Nadja Sharifi, is president of the Afghan Journal of Safety Committee, the HASC. His work has appeared in lots of different international outlets, including Foreign Policy Magazine, Al Jazeera English, Huffington Post, and the National Interest. He's also written for think tanks, including Brookings. He is reported and worked closely with the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, BBC and CNN. And spectacularly on behalf of the HASC, he accepted the 2017 International Press Institute International Media Supports Free Media Pioneer Award. And of course he was a Peterson scholar in our MA in Conflict Security and Development Program at Kings. Our third speaker, Nargis Nuhang was, until very recently, the acting minister of mines, petroleum and industries for the Afghan government. Previously she served as director general of the Treasury Department at the Ministry of Finance. She was also the senior advisor to the Minister of Education and advisor to the Minister of Higher Education and she also has a background in starting a women's rights NGO. I'm really delighted to have you here, especially having just gone through a long drive and grateful that you've got all the tech working, Nargis. And then our last speaker and my co-convener is Abdullah Kenjani, who was the Deputy Minister of Coordination, Strategy and Policy in Afghanistan's State Ministry for Peace. So in this role he coordinated the peace process with the Taliban on behalf of the Afghan government. Before joining the Afghan government he was editor-in-chief at one TV, and he was also a prominent broadcaster analyst with his own TV show. Mr. Kenjani holds an MA in Conflict Security and Development from Kings, where he was, again, another one of the recipients of the Peterson scholarship. So we've got a spectacular panel, and I'm happy to hand it over to Professor Gosin. Thank you, Professor Cheng. First of all, thank you, not only for the kind introduction, but for putting it together along with Mr. Kenjani, and I just want to say it's an honor for me to be sharing virtually the stage with you all. And so as an academic, I think I've been given the role to provide a understanding, particularly from an international community perspective, in terms of some of the challenges moving forward. And I want to say that I'm going to share my screen and time myself. Here we go. This presentation today that I'm going to be presenting is primarily part of a short piece that I'm working on with a Afghan colleague, Professor Atal Ahmadzai. And so we're trying to think about the international community and some of the pitfalls they're going to be facing as they are negotiating and talking with Taliban. So mostly I'm focusing on question two, but I'm happy in Q&A to talk about, you know, question three on some of the lessons learned. So first off, let's just put it in a current situation context, right? Taliban currently faces a delicate balance between sustaining loyalty and cohesion of their fighters while not being labeled as a pariah state by the international community. I think everything so far has demonstrated to us, they do not want to go back to the era of the 1990s where they were only recognized by three states. Importantly, we have to think about how did they get there and part of how they got there was gaining legitimacy by providing local services, primarily through the co-option of services that were being provided by the government and the INGOs. However, moving forward, this is going to be problematic because 75% to 80% depending on the number that you're looking at, the budget is financed by foreign aid. Sanctions are still in place and the state financial resources are mainly held abroad and frozen. For example, $7 billion out of Afan, central banks, $9 billion is held by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Recently also the IMF after the takeover blocked access to $460 million that were supposed to be, you know, allotted for COVID responses and help. EU last year had negotiated over $12 billion aid package that would be provided over the next four years. However, EU president and other foreign ministers have said that this is going to all halt and everybody's waiting to see. However, more recently at the United Nations, Qatar's Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani stressed that the necessity of continuing dialogue with Taliban because boycott only leads to polarization and reactions, whereas dialogue could bring in positive results. Also Pakistan's foreign minister maintained and warned that engagement with Taliban is necessary, because otherwise a humanitarian and economic collapse in Afghanistan remains a real threat, yet till today no country has recognized Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan. Now some people, you know, there's a huge debate and my colleagues and panelists can probably talk a little bit more about that. But as an international relations scholars, some of the things that I am looking at, and some of the dangers ahead is what I'm calling a like resistance movement. And what do I mean by that? And we've seen some people beginning to talk about it much more moving away from kind of like this, this typical civil war scenario to talking and thinking about what's happening outside of Afghanistan and not necessarily inside. For example, politicians, many of the politicians and senior military figures are now in neighboring Tajikistan. They represent Afghanistan's various ethnic and religious groups. This alliance also includes warlords and ethnic power brokers who are cooperating currently from outside Tajikistan. Now they're not strong yet, right? They still don't have an ideology that they unite behind other than their anti-Taliban so far. They're still they're weak. They're not strong yet. However, with time, if a government in exile really does take shape, there's still the prospect of a regional proxy battle akin to what happened in Libya. Now it could also fail, think about this attempt by Syrian groups to try to do this. However, I would say Syria was in a stronger state than Afghanistan and so it would be more like Libya than really Syria. So this gives them, they have some time to wait and watch what's going to happen inside. They can regroup, rearm and try to gain support for an anti-Taliban movement. And let's remember that was Taliban strategy, right? Taliban was defeated October 14, 2001 and they primarily retreated to Pakistan and they made their time before making their comeback. So while many of us would say civil war in the typical definition may not occur currently, this does not mean it might not happen. So what are some of the things that we would want the international community to think about and some of the pitfalls to be aware as they negotiate with Taliban moving forward. First with respect to government and governance. So Taliban has made it clear that they are following Islam, that this is the Emirate, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. However, let's be honest, the organization of Islamic cooperation has over 57 member states spread throughout Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. There is no one uniform Islamic government. Governments range from a presidential democratic republic, think of Indonesia, hybrid of theocratic and democratic institutions, thinking of Iran here, to monarchy like in Saudi Arabia and everything in between among these 57 member states who are all defined as being Islamic or Muslim majority. Another thing that varies across these Muslim states is their basic service provisions. There are some that have established effective governance structures where they mimic, I don't want to call them western or but developed nation governance structures in terms of how you effectively provide services. And so here I'm thinking of comments like Malaysia, like Qatar, like Indonesia, but there's also the less effective governance like in Libya, like in Sudan, and currently with the war in Syria. One important warning for the international community is that we should not equip the Taliban with the shield of cultural relativity or exclusive jurisdiction rights that they will subsequently use against both the Afghans and the international community itself by saying it is either, you know, the Islamic way or the Islamic way, the Islamic way. There's no one Islamic way. And so there is room to negotiate here, even while they try to push Islam as the barrier or the condition. The second thing is international rule of law and gender, right. Again here, Islam is not a monolithic religion while there is definitely the Quran the hadith. Different interpretations of this sharia law. The divisions are not restricted only to the two main sects Sunni and Shia, but all existing set subtractions. Even a deep and ever-widing cracks is between the Giovanni sect which is the ideological orientation of the Taliban, and a significant divide even within that between the Indian Giovanni school and the Pakistani Giovanni school. So lots of variation it's so easy from a Western perspective to kind of sum up into these Sunni Shi'at or, you know, one sect versus another, the interpretations can vary a lot. There's also differences in a variety of issues, area including human rights and gender think Albania think Kosovo and Turkey on gender and women's right versus Mali Saudi Arabia and Sudan. I would even say Saudi Arabia in the last couple of years has even been opening up much more in terms of women's right than it has ever been since its existence or establishment in 1932. Recently Pakistani foreign minister said girls and women should be allowed to go to school called in university yet we see the president of the current company university, declaring that he did not think women should be going to the university. So, as such any claim of religious or fundamental human rights by the Taliban is political and strategic, political in terms of safeguarding their mother's intentions from international condemnation and strategic in subjugating the African population through severe punitive measures and retribution. So, what can the international community do, and where does that leave us. Well, we need to stop promoting false dichotomy. It does not have to be the Western way, or the Taliban way. What needs to happen is the Afghan way, whatever that may be, especially given the multi ethnic multi religious dimension of Ransan, and as a Lebanese I completely understand that that is not easy and by no means Lebanon does not figure it out yet. But there has been, we've been successful in some periods of our time. Also the international community does have leverage through to mechanism recognition Taliban needs international recognition and legitimacy in fact recently requested to be recognized as the official government of the UN. Also when it comes to economic aid economic collapse is looming, it will occur. And, WHO recently said that it would need 38.5 million to meet humanitarian assistance in a front for just the next four months we've had hospitals shut down. This is not being provided, which means more outbreaks health outbreaks may occur. And so as a result, I think this is a ripe opportunity for the international community to start thinking coalescing around a strategy. However, again, it should not be the Western way as the only way moving forward. And with that, I think I four seconds left. Thank you so much. And you are spot on. Thank you. Not typical for academic but I did my best. So true. So true. Let me move on to an attitude. So, the floor is all yours. Thank you very much, Professor and it's great to see you. It's been many years and that's I'm very honored to be part of this panel actually this is this is my first, the first panel that I'm attending actually going through the shock of, you know what happened in Afghanistan and leaving Afghanistan and that catastrophic way to take a huge emotional toll I have to admit. So, but anyways, I think when you look at the future of Afghanistan, we're facing a lot of unknowns at this stage. There are unknowns in the sense that, you know, how will the Taliban behave in terms of governance. What will happen to the economy, how will be able to, you know, address the issue of security. And more importantly, what's gonna, what's how their approach will be towards the issue of human rights, particularly women's rights and issues such as press freedom and so forth. And one crucial factor that Professor Fatton outlined as well and that's the factor of resistance. Because there is obviously extensive spirit of defiance for the Taliban with Afghanistan. And how that evolves, you know, that's a matter that depends on a lot of questions, particularly the Taliban behavior towards the people, and whether they agree to the formation of an inclusive government or not because if they don't agree to the formation of an inclusive government, you know, where we all different ethnic groups see their presence in the political system and, you know, see themselves represented there. I don't think we'll be able to achieve political stability in Afghanistan. With regards to the governance, you know, so far the Taliban have not been able to, you know, offer governance. And this is very natural because for medicine groups as historically we have witnessed, you know, it's not easy for them to turn into political entities that particularly when it comes to offering governance, you know, they can't because the very foundational formation of such groups is just made for fighting, not for offering services. So, talking to people inside Afghanistan, you know, we see a huge amount of outrage and outcry, you know, because the economy is really, really bad, it's collapsing. You know, rampant poverty is emerging. And at the same time, you know, there's no prospect of governance, you know, and there. And at the same time we have witnessed some really serious human rights atrocities in the past couple of weeks, which have, which has created a lot of resentment on the part of the public. And this is the local factor, you know, that will determine the future of Afghanistan as to whether it will grow. Then we have the regional aspects. We have countries such as Pakistan who's in touch, start supportive of the Taliban, and it's, you know, lobbying on behalf of the Taliban didn't recognize. But at the same time we have another power, you know, Iran, which I believe is still observing to see what's going to happen or where the situation will evolve. And we have Russia, India. India considers itself the biggest loser in the region, by what the takeover of Afghanistan. So, and one very, very, very crucial factor is China. I think that China is already making overtures in terms of finding a way I will be too soon to say that to go in Afghanistan exploit the, you know, mineral deposits of the country because well the Chinese have been very, very judicious in terms of, you know, how to approach. How to to to going about a new country. But we are already seeing that the Chinese are showing interest in terms of incorporating Afghanistan in the grand CP project. On the one hand, and on the other hand, exploiting the vast minerals of the resource of Afghanistan. I mean that's something that the Chinese are very, very thirsty for. How much what how big the role of the China, how big of a role of China will play in Afghanistan. That's something to be seen, because if the Chinese offer financial aid for Afghanistan. And at the same time offer a strong, you know, backing to the country to to the Taliban, you know, then it will solidify Taliban's position in terms of consolidating their power in the country. So, again, that's something that will be determined in the coming weeks and probably months. And another there's another huge danger of, and that's the dangerous danger of another proxy war, regional proxy war in the battlefield of Afghanistan. And so, as Professor faith faith and earlier mentioned, you know that we have a significant number of, you know, commanders generals, you know, political leaders were in Tajikistan preparing for another for basically resumption of resistance. How much traction that receives and how much the regional powers, you know, will provide support to, you know, to that network. That's another question that's again, a question that will be answered later, because that could change or influence the equation of events in Afghanistan. And one other factor that's that's remained extremely mysterious in Afghanistan, particularly not just now, but also when we were in Afghanistan, for example, just seeing the moves and then a lot of subversive action that that's the group coming Afghanistan based ISIS. So, well, many people discount, you know, the presence of ISIS, but in the very first day when the Taliban took over, they manifested that they are their capability in terms of, you know, launching massive attacks at the same time. You know, for example, one day and probably within four or five hours we have four or five explosions, which was carried out by ISIS. So they have been silenced and since then, but that does not mean, you know, that they don't hold the potential to wage massive attacks and to challenge the Taliban, you know, in some fronts. Again, the scale of their capability to challenge the Taliban that's yet to be seen. So, and the third factor. Well, the other factor which has to do with, you know, the regional countries is the fight against extremism. With the takeover of power by the Taliban, the extremist groups and extremist networks happened and both emboldened, you know, and inspired inside Afghanistan and throughout the region, and even beyond, you know, because at the end of the day, if you look deep into the group and their ideological formation, it's not at the end of the day, it's not a political entity or political group, it's a very deeply ideological group, you know, coupled with, you know, ethnic and tribal component and transnational and regional terrorist groups. So, with such an ideological group coming to power. Well, how wise rational will that political behavior be? That's one main question. The main question is, it's the other important question is that this has already inspired and emboldened extremist networks, you know, throughout the region. So, will the regional countries, you know, take this threat serious and unite behind, you know, cooperating to, you know, to fight or to counter this potentially catastrophic challenge which is violent extremism. You know, that's something that has to do with the wisdom of the regional countries but so far I don't see any signs of that unfortunately. And the third factor, you know, that will determine the course of events in Afghanistan is the international community or the western countries, particularly the US. And again, with the Chinese making overtures towards Afghanistan, I don't think the United States will remain that silent about that issue. How will the position of the United States, you know, and the western, its western allies, evolve towards Afghanistan, and particularly when now that the China is coming into play. It's again a question or a matter that needs to be seen, but I believe, you know, that, you know, particularly with the ambitions of the Chinese state, you know, to incorporate Afghanistan as part of the CPAC and to exploit the mineral, you know, the resources of the country. That could also enhance the possibility or the likelihood of new proxy battles in the country in Afghanistan. Well, what's really unfortunate is who's paying the price for Afghan people. So, and so this was what I had for now, Professor. Perfect. Also spot on time. Thank you. And our third speaker is Nargis. Thank you so much for joining us. And I know you've gone through a lot in order to get here and, and I really appreciate you being able to join us. Thanks. You're just on mute. Thank you very much. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. So first of all, I have to thank the organizer of today's program for arranging this honest discussion that I believe we need to have a lot of them to be able to reflect on what happened in Afghanistan, and what is what are the likely scenarios as you questioned the lessons that we make sure that we whatever way we're choosing and the strategies that we are adopting now, we make sure that at least we are not repeating what we have been doing the last 20 years in Afghanistan. I'll give you some information from Afghanistan before going to the scenarios that we have, and as well as the lessons learned that we have and the recommendation that we have for intervention of the international community. Economically, as you know, very well, Afghanistan is going through a crisis. There are news. We have gotten to the point that even several servants are not paid for months. And several server several server institutions were the main source of employment in Afghanistan. People do not have jobs anymore, even main have not been able to get their salaries, because the money is being frozen. There's no fiscal cash in Afghanistan. And even if we have a service of Western Indian and many ground, if you don't have physical cash inside the country that is not resolving the issue. Would you go to human rights if we look at the situation as you know very well that girls are being banned from going to school for secondary from sixth class onward. And it's exactly today the 11 days that boys are going to school but girls are being banned once again from going to school. On top of that, we have more than two million women that they are the breadwinners of their family. They have been working in both public and private sector, and they have been feeding their families. But it has been one month now that they don't know about their situation, and none of them are allowed to go to work. And both in the public and private sector, they're facing basically make a situation where they're, they're like prisons and in their own country. And on top of that, the Taliban have already introduced segregated education in the higher education and they do not allow women and men to work together study together or have any kind of interaction in the public space. On top of that, today actually I read in the news that even they have closed the shelters that they were home to many of the victims of domestic violence, and they have shifted all those women to the jails, all those jails that obviously they had the colors they had the murderers and they had the side attackers in those jails, those are being released but instead of them the victims of the violence women they are being placed in those jails. This is the situation that we have right now in Afghanistan, and on top of that, Afghan people are much more aware and we find it highly uncomfortable when we see that our neighbor Pakistan is coming forward, and it's literally interfering in all our affairs and on top of that, they are, and their interference and their interaction right now is very destructive in Afghanistan and it's not unfortunately constructive. And that is creating another layer of conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan and this time it has gotten to the point that actually people are more resistance and they're more sensitive to what Pakistan is doing. Because somehow when we are that way everybody is holding Pakistan responsible for what is happening right now in Afghanistan. India feels like Afghan very much betrayed, not only by the Pakistan Taliban but also by the by the international community, but it's not only India, the European countries also feel betrayed because the US they made the decision, but they shared very little information on the country and what exactly they were doing to the European countries. So on one hand, they did call on all these allies when they came to Afghanistan, but they did not cooperate and coordinate with these allies when they left Afghanistan. So it was a very irresponsible withdrawal not only in case of Afghan people but also to the other allies in the region and as well as in the West that the US was having. There was uprising by woman group, many of them, and we were in contact with them and they took all the risk to be able to get out and raise their voice. And that actually proved many of the points the Taliban made before by saying that they represent Afghanistan, people do not have any problem with them, and people actually support the kind of governance and the Islamic Emirates that they had. And those are pricings and rush of the people to not only Kabul airport but also to other countries, the provinces that they're having, they're having borders with other countries, thousands of people were waiting for weeks to be able to get out of Afghanistan. While many people are saying that, oh, people because of having a better life, they were rushing to Kabul airport to be able to get out to US or other Western countries for a better life. But look, if people are going to the provinces like Herat, Kandahar, Nengarhar, where they were just waiting for their night to get out of Afghanistan and go to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan. There's no better life waiting for them there. They're going to be refugee and in a much more worse situation but still they wanted to get out of Afghanistan. And that shows the level of people's frustration and fear about the governance of Taliban. So on top of that, what we saw that Taliban, everybody that they kept on promoting Taliban saying that they have changed, they have become moderate and they're going to have a different kind of governance this time. We saw that the only change that we see is that they want to be connected with international community, they want to be recognized by the international community. They want to have their political representation in different countries, but in terms of governance, in terms of ruling the people, in terms of atrocities, you don't see any change in the modality of the Taliban. And on top of that, we also hear about the fragmentation within the Taliban, and you're having fragmentation both horizontal and as well as vertical. On horizontal side, you see that the food soldiers are not listening to the Taliban leaders anymore. Mojahed, several times he came to media and he kept on calling on all soldiers that we have announced a general public amnesty and you should not kill or torture any national security force and even working for national security or sports people or for the government, but we saw that not only mean they had those atrocities even on women or police women that in one of the provinces. She was shot in front of her husband and boy when she was six months pregnant, just because she was a police woman. So the Taliban on the ground level, they are not listening to the Taliban in Kabul anymore and every one of them in their own province are trying to come up with their own list of rules and regulations and trying to govern the provinces, which is bringing more not only confusion but also more fragmentation and more grievances at the community level. And at the higher level, there is still fragmentation and disagreements between the Taliban and as well as Haqqani group, because while Haqqani group is trying to have more control over the security sector, Taliban are somehow feeling that they are they thought the Haqqani is being supported right now more by the Pakistan than the Taliban, so that's one way or the other way they are going to have all these changes. So the way that the situation that we see right now is that we had the resistance so far in Panjshir, but you're going to see these pockets of resistance in different parts of the country, especially with the way the Taliban are going with the depopulation atrocity of the people. I'm sure you heard about them asking people from Daikundi province to evacuate the several districts and go to other provinces, and then they burn all their houses. So all these people, one way or the other, they will go and they'll try to organize themselves and they will try to resist and a price against the Taliban. Then we also have, and beside all these uprising and resistance, so far the racial countries we think are keep quiet but I don't think they are quiet. I think India has spent more than $2 billion in Afghanistan reconstruction the last 20 years. They're not going to easily let the situation go and let the Pakistan to manage everything and represent Afghanistan after this. I'm sure one way or the other, countries like India, countries like Tajikistan, countries like Turkey and others, they are going to support these uprising and resistance, and this itself if not managed properly is going to take us to another several war. So and then on top of that we see that the violations of humans right and women's right that Taliban are committing all around the country is also raising more questions and more concerns all around the country because everybody in the platform is asking for not recognizing Taliban because they are not basically treating women as as human being anymore. So that is the situation, governance for Taliban is going to be very difficult. And it's not going to be easy, but then on top of that, if you look at the lessons learned, perhaps when it comes to recommendation I'll stop there because I can speak in the round before, because I think otherwise it's going to be longer time. But if you look at the lessons learned, look the structure that was imposed on upon people was never demanded by upon people are very highly centralized structure. And on top of that, if you look at the NSF NSF was structured in a way in a way that was highly centralized, our governance was I centralized, and it could never respond to the situation that we had on the ground. It was designed by a group of Afghan diaspora with international consultants. And then it was, it was mainly the international community, they were either working with Afghan diaspora or they're working with the warlords. And both of these groups have no intention of reconstructing the country when we saw that, but then those people that they genuinely wanted to work in Afghanistan, they were engaging with them, but only to listen, but then do nothing and do not take any of the recommendation forward. The corruption was something that while everybody was talking generally in a different platforms about it, but when it was coming actually fighting the corruption. Many, many times when I was in the government, I reported to the international community about the corruption that was going on in the system, but then I got no response and they say we can't do anything about it. It's internal affairs of the Afghan people and upon government. We do not want to interfere the impunity that we talked about we saw that brought to the people that people lost their motivation. We are fighting the Taliban. And on top of that we are forcing Taliban for inclusive government, but let's ask ourselves, did we have inclusive government before in the previous government, I don't think so. We especially didn't in the last seven years had no inclusive government. I mean, women were included and appointed like myself. Youngsters would include it, but it was all more like a symbolic to be there and fill the position and show to the world and the people. But we will not engage in any discussion, strategic level and any decision making or anything that had to do with the country's affairs. I want to stop it here and when it comes to recommendation perhaps then in between the discussion, I can present my recommendation. Thank you. As promised, absolutely brutal. Thank you for that. And yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot there for Abdullah to touch upon some of which we've had conversations about as well, which I think you'll, I would encourage you to follow up on and say the things that you want to say. Thank you so much, Professor. Let me begin by thanking you. I actually did and nothing you have given me so much credit. It's an honor to be in such a wonderful conversation today. Thank you so much home because we have been studying in Kings and whenever we are talking in this platform. It gives you more motivation. Let me also take this opportunity and extend my appreciation and profound gratitude to the Peterson family. And I hope that they will be listening to us. I had it in my mind regardless of understanding that they are here. I really hope that me and that you both could contribute more to that noble cause. Alex put enough on this phone and that's on the shoulder of know that's better everyone in the country. Thank you so much to everyone. As far as I know him other and maybe sisters listening to us. Thank you so much for that. I have divided my comment into three parts today. The first one. I have some sort of analysis what's going on and I found some at the moment. After the Taliban talk over Kabul. I think Taliban is facing with new realities that they were not ready to confront so quickly at the moment. The Taliban has been ruling and controlling part of the rural areas and mountainous portion of the country in the past 20, if I may say, 18 years, and since the situation in the cities are much different. So let me remember, remember everyone that there has been a big demographic changes in Afghanistan 75% of the younger generations are below 40 at the moment and they are located in the big cities like Kabul Kabul is a city of something that is six to seven million. And added their friend of mine conceptualize that he told me that if Taliban would not be able to manage it properly, Kabul is like a social atomic bam that the Taliban is now lying on that. And as you all know this city has been also become so militarized in the past 20 years, people has begun, and they have not forget how to use it they have just put aside for time being. So this is important to see how Taliban going to be addressing three major questions in my, in my opinion and their relationship with the people. So the first question is, what has been the end the state of their fight in the past 20 years under the umbrella of so called jihad, and how that's going to be turned now into the breads and on the table of the people. So these are questions for the most of the people that of course military victory against foreign forces might be something historically been cherished by few and in our history, but the more important question today is how that military is going to be turning to some sort of economic and social success. The second key questions because of the time I will review on these questions is some of the contradictions that the Taliban have been faced has been facing now at the moment so that one of the key ideological question is that they have defeated of course the, what they call it infidels, but now they are asking for the menu of those taxpayers to be to the government could run at the moment so how they're going to be. So if we were to specifically quest response to these questions. That would be also part of the ideological discourse among the hardliners and cobble and beyond that I found some that the third key question will be. The Afghans, the majority of the Afghans who are posing ideologically in the parliament will be also asking for their levities as we have been witnessed that it has reflected in a different ways from demonstration to some sort of strikes in the city and even I am so worried of some sort of what I call it an urban militancy and insurgency in the future. Because the people are demanding not only for their levity and freedoms, they need food, and the Taliban is not able to provide services services is in portion for the people in the cities and maybe not so much as it is for the people in the rural area but the people are demanding, Taliban has not been able, for example, to issue these primary teams such as passports in the past to what a man, which is a high demand in the moment among the most of Afghans. The third question is also I think about the ability of the Taliban for governance and the potential and the capacity that international community may engage with them. The Taliban institutionally rejected any kind of cooperation not only with the ex-official and the Afghan government but they also have been so reluctant to give the chance for the people who have not been in the government in the past 20 years. So I think they have been dividing Afghanistan between them and others. And when it comes to the others, even they are not respecting to those brutal critics of the governments that I and Mr. Nihon have been partial to that for quite a bit of time. So it means that this kind of opposition with the majority of the people of Afghanistan might have some social reaction by the people in the future. I haven't seen that the Taliban would say okay, so we will not allow the ex-government's officials to be in the government, let's bring the character of an ex-government and give them a chance. While they are busy so much in distributing the resources and positions of powers as our government, as the government that we were part of to their loyals, which has been disastrous for us and now for the Taliban. So if I may conclude, these are the key questions that people are asking and we need to see how the Taliban are going to be addressing. In light of what Mr. Nihon said, the ref demig the Taliban is a serious issue, since it's not a democratic group and pluralistic that if people could come out and talk about it, but it's so much. The people are competing with each other, the people are trying to marginalize one each other in the African government, as Mr. Nihon said, the Kabul institutions has been captured by Aqanis mostly, and the Taliban and Doha, the political office is not happy for that at all, most of them are jobless as ourself, like the civil servant in the Afghan government. There's also a fight between Ghul Jai versus Burani's tribes within the Taliban. There's also, there's another fight between who going to be representing the Taliban and the international community and who going to be their big faces when it comes to dealing with the things in Afghanistan, because the Taliban have got now only one spokesperson that he's talking almost about everything they need to respond to more complicated questions in a coming few weeks and coming months, not only to the domestic audience but international community. I think these are important. I can go to different dimensions of this rest for hours, in order to respect, I think that's needed to be deconstructed another conversation. I really suggest Professor the Taliban who are and the mapping of the elites and how they're dealing with each other should be, should be subject of another conversation in the future. I think there's a lot of ideas and new realities that need to be patched up. The last part that I would like to also patch up on very quickly is how the international, the original powers would deal with the Taliban. Historically and traditionally the fight against the United States presence in Afghanistan has been a unifying factor and I think that was the strategic objectives for most of the countries like China, Iran, Russia to cooperate and support the Taliban. While that platform, that reason and cause for cooperation has gone now because there is no U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the NATO forces in the country. There are three dilemmas when it comes to engaging with the Taliban by the original powers. Firstly, I think the essence of the Taliban government and Islamic camera, recognition and deeply engagement with a purely Salafi, if I may say, or a traditional Islamic movement in Afghanistan would have a lot of costs for Central Asia, for China and for Iran if they would easily accept such a reality even in Afghanistan. So it's not matter of how to see original powers relationship with the Taliban versus the West, it's also their own dilemma that they need to really address that. And that's why I think none of them has took the opportunity to come in front and say, okay, I will recognize an Islamic camera because the time that they would recognize an Islamic camera, right? That inspiration and that revelation will will spread out across the region and I think that will be like a strategic security threat for everyone. The second one is how the Taliban will be will be positioning itself when it comes to the relationship with the United States and overall with the with the liberal world. Because it's important that has been our dilemma when we have been in the government, we wanted to keep a check and balance between the region and the West, but it's sometimes impossible. If you become a client of a West, you need to prioritize some of the countries when it comes to the others. And I'm not sure whether the Taliban will be able to keep that balance because that has been an inspiration among many leaders in the past in Afghanistan too to find a way that it's almost difficult and impossible to convince the international community, especially the liberal countries to pay you while you're dating with Russia or with China or with Iran. It's impossible. And of course, the third key question is about the future of the original countries allies and clients within the Afghan within the Taliban government. I can give you an example of Iran, for example, to, to, to exemplify what I mean by this. So Iranians has been so excited in order to support the Taliban and the West and the south of Afghanistan at the West to to to to strengthen and to increase their company against the Afghan government two months ago, and they had few clients and allies that they wanted to, to, to, to, to, to be support that has been the recipient the key recipient of the Iranians support and that while when the government has given those two key names that has been accused for a long time being Iranian allied and clients, Sadr Ibrahim, for example, and Zakhir Khayyum, Taliban has given them a deputy ministerial position in the Afghan government. And the today, even the traditional allies of Iran has not been accommodated contrary to the bigger agreement of the Taliban with the, with the original countries before taking over the Kabul. And that's why you have seen that the Taliban, for example, the Iranian special invited and participated in a meeting of three other special advice passion Chinese and Pakistani who has visited recently Kabul. And you do see that this satisfaction would, would, would emerge and reflect in a different ways in the future. So, and the last I think recommendation, if I may say it in a one minute to respect the time. I think any kind of engagement when we are talking about a phone son, we need to be very careful that we should not have a very simplistic and, and minimalistic positions tower that constant we're talking about 35 million said or disparate waiting for some sort of humanitarian support by the international community. And I think we shouldn't be talked, we shouldn't be have repeating the same mistakes that have been continuously repeated repeating itself in the past 20 years that we should put the government as a center of our policy making and the local the way we look towards the I think the people should be center of any kind of decisions that either collectively or individually international community going to make, and we need to avoid also the rest scope to find a safe way how we could avoid how we could make the Taliban accountable for some of their promises and pledges and responsibilities that they have as a group of us in the national community as a responsible member of the international community, and to give them assistance, we need to also be very mindful that the centralized system as Minister Nehon say, could be a big doorkeeper in the future, as it has been in the past 20 years, we have been, we have been lobbying for a decentralized government the past 20 years while simplistically most of the people would have told us that they have an ethnic agenda towards this while a portion of the collapse has been due to the centralized system of governance a guy sitting controlling everything when he left the country everything has collapsed, so it's important that we should let that we should learn these lessons and I'm sorry I think I was not academia that's why I didn't respect fully Dr change the time, I will I will engage later on thank you once again, and appreciate those wonderful thank you so much. So we've had lots of interesting comments and then many people have actually put in some great questions into the chat and as well as into the q&a so I'll ask my fellow panelists just to take a brief look at those I'll go through them and we'll add people into the panel Christine can I answer an anonymous question for me, I just want to say it's anonymous so this person is one. So this someone asked about the majority of Iran people don't want the Taliban to be recognized internationally because of their barbaric and injustice behavior, even though the Taliban received international funds they would spend probably on weapons rather than supporting the people, why does she push the topic that Taliban should be recognized internationally. I want to be very clear that is not what I am suggesting that is going to be the reality. There is you have either you recognize or you don't. So as the governments there's this huge push to recognize Taliban by a lot of regional organization. What a tall and I are trying to do is to say okay if that's where you're going to go. Here's the road ahead of you, and here's what you need to take into consideration, and here are what some of the things you need to be thinking about. This is not our role to say whether or not they should be recognized. However, if we don't put any conditions or if we don't think about the strategy, we will be repeating exactly what was mentioned by the three panelists a failed policy for over 20 years, because then you are handing over the strategy to someone else in the case of the Constitution, very typical of what the West has done not only in a France, but also in Iraq, right it was the diaspora in combination of the West that created that. And so this is why we are warning for the sake of the afran population that is going to need assistance that's going to need the humanitarian assistant. How should we be thinking about the discussion with Taliban so I just wanted to make it clear. I'm not pushing that that's what's really being pushed for. So how do we think about it. Thank you. Does anyone else want to speak on that question about recognition because it seems to be a really big and important one. Can I, Professor. I think it's even important that how we're going to be framing or awarding when it comes to engaging with the Taliban. I think that with national pragmatic engagement and working, supporting, all of these workings has different meaning, and we really need to be very careful that nobody exploit and manipulate such a war and when it comes to dealing with, with the African situation, because it's super complicated. And that's why I think we need it like deep tanking how we're going to be framing our rhetoric towards the Taliban because this rhetoric is important narratives are important and this is where the policy is going to be build up on that. And that was my, my humble suggestion. Yes, please. I mean, my point is that with the way the Taliban are dealing with the situation. And that shows very clearly that they don't know how to govern the country, how to deliver services, how to respect the basic rights of human, how to deal with women as they equals. And then all the issues at the regional level that they're having at the international level and domestically inside the country. So even if we engage with the Taliban, the point is that like how we do that, to make sure that the Taliban understand that they have to accept the new Afghanistan. They have to accept that Afghanistan is a diverse society. They have to accept that citizens are equal. They cannot come and they try to move everybody. They cannot come with their own version of Islamic Emirates and expect everybody to follow and accept that. We had several discussion with the Taliban during last one to two years. And we did confront them sometimes when they said Islamic Emirates, we say, and Sharia law, we say that, well, there are countries with implementation of Sharia law, but it's totally different than what you're telling us. So by the time that we managed to put enough of justification together to actually confront them and tell them that you know what is from your talking about we haven't seen that model. There are some models of other countries. Then they said they came and they said, oh, women's rights within Sharia law and Afghan culture. So basically whatever they think is not going to fit in Sharia law, you're just going to put that under Afghan culture. So and then even when we talk to culture, Afghanistan is a very diverse country. What is culturally accepted in, for example, south of Afghanistan is totally unacceptable to the north of Afghanistan. And same thing goes in like between south and west and different parts of Afghanistan. So I think when it comes to dealing with the Taliban constructively engaging with them, that is important because it's also going to provide us an opportunity for ending the violence and trying to come with a political settlement. But honestly speaking, with the way the Taliban have dealt with the situation, with the way that Pakistan is interfering and Taliban are not saying anything, letting Pakistan to be their spokesperson, not only in the international for us but also inside the country. I'm very much less optimistic about continuation of the Taliban government. I feel like if they continue like this. Then if the international community will try to support them will try to provide humanitarian support to state institutions. The simple of the fact is that they cannot run the country, they cannot run the states and they're going to have a lot of problem domestically, regionally internationally. And then they're going to have a lot of appraisings. So I don't see continuation of Taliban. So this is something that even if we engage with them, we should make sure that our engagement should not strengthen the Taliban and what they are doing, but actually make them realize to see the bigger picture. How much they're willing to see the bigger picture is a big question because they're high according to what we have seen so far, you're not willing to do that. Najib did you want to say anything to all of that. It's a very difficult question. Well, it's because the very reality of the Taliban is not very compatible with the, you know, with the realities and ideals of the 21st century. So, if we subject Afghan people to such a group, I think it's going to be absolutely betrayal. So on the other hand, we do understand, you know, the dire condition of the people. So, now that we have this disaster, this crisis in Afghanistan, we have to find a way to help the people in Afghanistan. Well, that's one aspect. The other aspect is which is more brutal. It's the kind of pragmatic approach, you know, that the world powers might have. So let's say if China, you know, goes about recognizing the Taliban, I think it will change the equation to a large extent in the global stage. So obviously the Western powers, particularly the United States, does not want to be left out or does not want to be put in a situation where it loses out in Afghanistan. So that might change, you know, the equation with regards to the dynamics, with regards to recognizing the Taliban. Again, we have to wait and see how things evolve. It's interesting that all of you would want to tackle this particular subject in light of the fact that the G20 is going to meet right after the UN General Assembly to talk specifically about Afghanistan. So I was kind of trying to get you to the point where you'd say if you could address the G20, what would you have to say to them? You can think about, you know, in tackling some of these other questions, what that might look like. I try, I don't know if Danny, our communications officer might be online, but I was going, I was trying to add people as panelists so they could actually ask the questions themselves, but unfortunately I don't have co-hosting privileges. So Danny, I'm hoping either you can do that or you can add me as a co-host. Hi, I'm Christine. I'll add you as a co-host. So if anyone wants to ask a question, if they just raise their hands and then we can unmute you and allow you to speak. That would be great. So I will, as soon as I'm able to, aha, yes, terrific. I think I'm able to do that now. Oh, no, not just yet. So let me start with the first, I'll start with a couple of questions in the chat while I'm being added as, ah, here we go. So I'm going to start with adding Lukash, who I see has asked a question in the chat. So Lukash, you'll be promoted to panelist in just a second and you can turn on your camera and ask your question. Hi, um, thank you so much for your input for the very interesting discussion. My question is with regards to the different militias has been operating on behalf of different power brokers. If it was Dustin, it was the former governor, what happened to those groups and do you believe that they're going to come back in upcoming months going to mobilize and then going to start fighting again against the Taliban. Thank you. So I don't know who wants to take that one. Maybe, maybe fat and I'm not sure who I mean whoever feels most able to tackle that and is, is willing to tackle that. I will leave that. I think profile so fast and will go. Sorry, but what was that. I think he said I should go, but I just want to clarify. You're asking what happened to these two now they're going to be mobilized. Is that what the question was. I was surprised that there was basically almost no opposition Mazar fell very easily. And I, I used to live in Mazar so I believe they are quite few fighters who could actually be fighting. So, so there was a really interesting. I've been talking to former Afghan military, Afghan military folks with and they talked about how they were losing because slowly they lost support from the air. And so how that then shifted what they were able to do and not to do and they became sitting ducks. And so when you're put in that situation where anything I mean you cannot win. You know, once us withdrew all of its different tactical and strategic support, then it was almost impossible for some of these isolated places to be able to launch at the level that they would need to win one to Taliban did not win by itself They had like 10,000 network of alliances with Al Qaeda and other groups and winning going there and kind of like been doing threats over months. Again, this was not overnight. These things were happening but they were out of our sight. So unless you were living there unless you were living it, you were not realizing what was happening. Again, look at the death tolls look at how many attacks that even just ISIS K was doing the lead up to the withdrawal. It wasn't getting our attention at that time because it was not hot news in the West. So I think it is it is. It's not that there was no resistance there has been a resistance since February 29 2020 when President Trump negotiated the agreement. And when we left out the government of a front, why should anybody respect the government of a front stand in a front stand when we the United States left them out of the negotiations. And so we set the stage. And, and when we did that the military was like, well, where are we going to win how are we going to win. So there's, there's a really good I can't remember if it was New York time was what they did there's huge, just talking to military of one military. Another thing is let's not forget over the 20 years over 70, 70, 7,000 of one police officers and military gave their lives. So this whole idea that they didn't want to fight for the country I think it's a false dichotomy again in the West so we have to be very careful. There was some resistance. They were just not as strong and enough and that's why I think we will see as Sir, can Johnny and I've been saying you're going to see some reshuffling and there may be a comeback and also Minister Nihon and Mr. if you were talking about we don't we're not going to say it's tomorrow right but all the conditions seem to be lining up for something to happen. Well, can I add something, Professor, if you allow me reorganization takes a little bit of time that would not happen one in a night. I've been defeated in October 2001 and they reorganized politically in 2004 and militarily, even later on, like as a group, not as an individual, I'm talking so general. I'm not talking so specifically on the attacks that are being recorded later on. So it means that we have been talking of something between between two to three years. While a political mobilization against the Taliban has been as quick as next day of takeover of the Kabul by the specifically in the social media have seen millions of people that are opposing and I think that has also created a fertile ground for those people who are inside Afghanistan to be saying the second point of one stone sadly what I have learned from Professor Chang and the rest is a fertile ground for such an insurgency and it has been due to different causes and factors. I don't know grievances. Access to resources and access to position of power, I can name 10 other factors and of course an internet original support for that we have seen recently the Taliban is publicly confronting at least with two countries. The one is with Tajikistan that they have publicly denounced and condemn their interference is what they call their end interference is an African situation. And secondly, yesterday, Taliban put up also a public statement to condemn the violation of the air space of Afghanistan by the Americans. So it means that the Taliban is as already started their confrontations in the region and beyond. I have heard the same story about their dissatisfaction deeply with Iranians over some of the things. And we all know that Russians are also having a multi approach towards Afghanistan. It's not about that they have just recognized it and simply say okay it's done that's, let's move on. And then what the Taliban take over in Afghanistan. I think few coming months with very critical, very critical for the international community for the people of Afghanistan and for the Taliban. I think it's from a civil war to a brutal, stable country and to a power state. And there are other great areas that we could explore later on on that too. Thank you. Absolutely. Nargis you wanted to say something and then after that I'm going to actually try and take three or four of the questions at once and then ask you each maybe to answer one, one or two of them. Okay, I guess. I'm not very sharp because most of the points were already answered, especially by Neem and Johnny. I think it's very unfair that we blame the ANSF for not fighting. They found, especially in the last few years when they were going to the back of feet, literally they knew that they're not going to come alive, but still they were going to the back of feet. It was the highly centralized system, the corruption, the racism and the impunity that actually let them down. And then there was also a lack of proper communication with them. I talked to some of the generals in the past few days and I said can you tell me what happened. It was not only the ANSF but also all of us that we work in the civil society government everywhere. There was a lot of assumptions but not lack of, and then lack of clarity. For example, one thing that everybody was saying that, oh there is an agreement between the US and the Taliban that 15 provinces will be taken by the Taliban so that they can get brought up at the same level with the government and then the negotiation will start. In most cases, we don't know who, but somebody communicated from Kabul to these ANSF, I'm told them that it's better that you peacefully give in the province because soon we are going to have the political settlement with the Taliban and you're going to go back to your province, you're going to go back to your job. And here's going to be amnesty. So most of them they didn't fight with that impression that there's somebody give them that instruction. We don't know who gave that instruction. We need to find that information but it was miscommunicated by the time that most of them were given and then if that process started, it was too difficult to manage the situation after 15 to 16 provinces because everybody started the process and then a lot of deal also happened between many of the local commanders and the Taliban. And then the other thing that happened that the previous government appointed most of them were one ethnicity in all around the country because according to them that's how they were thinking that they can control everything, not knowing that the Taliban are also coming from the same ethnicity. So in many, many places, they literally did not allow the soldiers to fight with the Taliban because they already had some sort of deal, technically with those Taliban. So we need to have that information before blaming those people that they sacrificed, as you say, more than 70,000 for the liberty of Afghanistan. So a lot has happened in the system that we need to get more information about how the resistance. So it takes time, it will take time, but sooner or later you will see a very strong resistance against the Taliban taking shape and form inside the country, and there are going to be countries that will support them and they have their own reasons for doing that. And I think that part was touched upon very well by Mr. Kanjani, so I don't want to go there. But I popped into the chat for those of you who are interested, a really interesting podcast from an Afghan Brigadier General. So this is, and some of you actually on the panel might know him. So this is Brigadier General Koshat Sadat, who was the former Afghan deputy minister for security. And he went through a pretty brutal interview. So this was posted yesterday. And he talked about why he left and what had happened and why he didn't have faith and it was no longer willing to fight for the government and how he felt about what happened when the president basically fled. So I would encourage you all just to have a listen to that. It's, I think it's revelatory in its own way. I was just going to say, I just put in the article with the interview with the Afghan Sun security forces. It was in Washington Post in the chat as well. So for anyone interested to take a look at their perspective from on the ground what was happening. Great. So those resources are there in the chat. I'm going to ask Payal to meet herself. Oh, she, she, oh, there she is. Payal, could you meet yourself and then you can turn on your camera if you want and ask your question introduce yourself to, and then I'm going to ask Thomas to do the same. Yeah, hi. Thank you so much for this session. I am Payal Satsena from India, and I was a student of conflict security and development in 2012. I'm currently working on a maternal health care project in Afghanistan and I'm constantly in touch with the midwives, the doctors and the supervisors that we're training. And it's actually surprising that despite everything they're still going about their work. And they're going, you know, they're going from house to house to take care and to give medical assistance to expectant mothers and children. So what they're scared off is the drying up of funds in the Ministry of Public Health. As of now they what they tell me is that the Taliban soldiers are not really stopping them from doing their work, but they are really worried about the drying of funds so I would like either or anyone like to answer this question as to what do they foresee about the funds, especially in the Ministry of Public Health because no country can really go forward if the health sector is totally, you know, in in shambles. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, Thomas, if you could introduce yourself and ask your question and if it's helpful, you can direct it at one of the speakers. Hi, I'm Thomas McGuire. Thank you very much all visiting fellow in the Department of War Studies and an assistant professor of intelligence and security at Leiden University in the Netherlands. And I'm very interested in the impact that political change has on security sectors in a number of countries including Afghanistan and so my question is how much change or continuity. Are we seeing in in the security sector of Afghanistan right now, both in terms of institutions and personnel. Are we seeing generally a quite significant cleansing and change in the role of these institutions and the personnel from the leadership down to the rank and file or are we seeing more in the way of co-optation of these institutions. And let me throw one more in the mix here from Florence Mayo, who I think has since left the seminar, but put it put an interesting question into the chat here, which is to all of you, do you think that a constitutionalist model would work for governance in Afghanistan. So, thinking about Lebanon specifically, you know, that's probably the one that most of us would immediately associate with that. Consociational consociationalism, which is having different elites from either different ethnic groups or different religious groups share power but in a very explicit kind of way, you know, you get the presidency one year and then you rotate around. You get these ministries are, you know, one third of parliament goes to these groups and then another third goes to these groups and so on and so forth. So, with something like that kind of a government work, do you think is there. Is it a possibility if, you know, going forward, there was to be a different kind of settlement. So I'll leave that open to all of you. I'll leave you also to answer the questions that that you feel like answering and maybe, maybe we can stop start with. Okay. Thank you, Professor. Well, that was the first question. Health ministry. Well, it's very moving, you know, to see that those health workers are still doing their job, you know, despite the fact that they haven't been paid. They're facing a lot of wages and they're facing very tremendous and very intense economical crisis. It's because it's not just them, actually the whole country is facing such a crisis like that, but I don't believe you know we have a lot of money in the Ministry of Health. You know, believe the entire government, there is no money there. And as we discussed earlier, Afghanistan is also frozen by the United States. So the biggest impact of that has been on the people. So, unless and until that's resolved, you know, I don't think the issue of wages will be, you know, resolved. And I don't know when these health workers will stop working, but I hope they don't. As for the security sectors, security sectors in Afghanistan, security institutions have been and Taliban have assumed positions both in the strategic and the operational and to a large extent in the tactical level as well. The issue is that the Taliban don't trust those who worked in the security sector in the former rich government, because they see them as their enemies and they have also engaged in extensive you know, retribution, particularly against, you know, those who worked for NDS National Director of Security which is Afghanistan's intelligence organization. So, it will be, I believe, you know, a large scale cleansing of these organizations because Taliban already feel very insecure, you know, we discussed this earlier that fear that an uprising could take place at any moment in any part of the country, particularly from Kabul. So that's why they have been very, very careful and at the same time, very fearful as well that there are even reports, you know, that in certain areas where there were large population of people from Pineshire and from from Somali plain, that some of the youngsters were just picked up by the Taliban for no reason, mainly because of their fear of them uprising against them. So, I think this will continue and the security institutions will be totally closed. Alrighty. Do you want to follow up on that button. I was going to talk about the constitutional one, just because I think it's, it's an interesting question. I really think there needs to be a discussion about what form of government and not a centralized form and constitution comes to mind in post-conflict especially in ethnic, multi-ethnic communities. I think Lebanon horribly applied it. And I think if you ask Aaron Liphart, there's a couple years he would consider Lebanon as fully a constitutional democracy and not every time. And that is because there's a series of conditions that must be met. Yet too often, when we go to apply it in post-conflict states, we only focus on elite cooperation and the mutual veto. There's everything else that is necessary in order for constitutional democracy to work. I think it is an option. I just put in the chat, there was a news, a special issue in 2019. And so I just put in the introduction which goes through the articles in the summary. And you know you've got countries like Lebanon, but you also like you know the most famous one I'd say would be Switzerland, right, and others. And I think if anybody's interested to take a look at that, the pros and the cons, because if Afonso is going to move forward in that form, I would say learn from the mistakes of Lebanon and not do it the way Lebanon did. Because I mean, today, Lebanon is in complete collapse, where about according to World Bank, more than 60% of the population, 55 to 60% of the population is below the poverty line, have no food, no access to electricity and water. It is in complete shambles. And so, so don't follow Lebanon's model because they did not do it properly. And this is what security sector I've not seen enough all I've seen is that, so I don't know details on the ground, others can say that but what I've seen so far is that Taliban has allowed their own groups to govern differently in different areas. So I don't think yet it is what we would consider an institutional reform in the way or co-opting it in the way typically we would think about it. When you go in they have their own people their own fighters and it's been more of a takeover in a lot of places but I think if you go on the ground you may find a lot of variance among the different districts and inside of Afghanistan but I don't have too much knowledge on the ground. I guess did you want to to come in. On the health sector, the structure that we have was the, there were injuries that they were providing basic services, health packages to the citizen, and they were being contracted by Ministry of Public Health so Ministry of Public Health was dealing mainly with big hospitals in the center of the several big provinces but not money, because we have limited number of public hospitals that they were managing but in terms of providing basic services to the citizen, it was all done by angels. So one of the models that and then the funding was mainly coming to World Bank through a consulate construction trust fund and then they were providing that money to the Ministry of Public Health to just contract the angels and they were providing the services and they were just doing the monitoring and reporting. So I think in case of that, perhaps the World Bank can come together with WP and they can look into that model that they can minimize the engagement of the government, but they maintain those that structure in place so that those angels can provide continued providing support to the people, and they can get paid according to their contracts that they have, but it's going to be less engagement of Ministry of Public Health because Ministry of Public Health will actually will be more a problem creator at this stage, rather than supporter. So I think that is something that we need to I'm sure that the World Bank is already looking into that possibility, especially that they can't work with the current government but I think there has to be more push for that. Yes, humanitarian support is something that we desperately needed, especially that now soon we're going to have winter starting in Afghanistan. So many of the families will also not have fuel and food during cold weather of winter. But I think it's also important that UN comes up with a modality that they reduce their admin costs because they charge the cost of up to 30% 300 million of the 1 billion that the country's promised and pledged for providing humanitarian support will once again go to the admin costs of UN and I think for a good country like Afghanistan, going to the crisis right now it's a lot of money. And in terms of security sector, the institutions are totally out there, but the people have totally disappeared, mainly because of the fear of prosecution by the killing and torture, but we hope that at some point when we work on the, and this has happened previously as well, that we did have an army hearing before the civil war. So it disappeared everything collapse, but as soon as we had the interim government in 2002, most of these generals and soldiers they came back with some sort of record, and they wanted to join back the army. And some of those people were hired and some of them were not hired. So I think the people are there, the army and any support there, yes they are in hiding, but as soon as we put some sort of structure that will secure their life when we will give them the assurance that they're not going to be killed or prosecuted. They are going to come back. And I think what is really important that we really look at the structure that given the location that Afghanistan has, and given the challenges that we have in terms of ISIS, Stalin or any other group or that will, you never know that the new name will come and will pop out with the same strategy and same funder. We need to come up with the structure for any set that will respond to the ground realities and the challenge that we have, rather than just few generals in like and thinking that this is what Afghanistan should have. We need to see like what Afghanistan can have. I always give a very basic example when I talk to a few people, like even before class of the administration. You see our ANISF is just like a big elephant. And the proxy word that we have in Afghanistan in the name of Taliban, Haqqani, ISIS and others, these are just the little mouses that suddenly they get into the house. So how do you expect that big elephant to respond to big number of mouses that they suddenly get into one room and all of them are trying to attack the elephants one from one way from the other way. That has been the reality of our ANISF. Highly costly, like high structure, highly centralized, but not being able to respond to the realities and the needs that we have in Afghanistan. So I think that is something that will give us more time that we really need to look into that and see that you're like, what do we have in Afghanistan, what are the requirements in Afghanistan. But of course that can happen only if you have a partner in Afghanistan. Right now there is no partner in Afghanistan. And as mentioned earlier, Taliban is not willing to cooperate with anybody. They are not willing to recruit anyone, even within their own team. They have a lot of layers and they don't easily trust anybody. They don't bring them on board. It's actually a lot of trust building that they need to do among themselves first then with others. That's a very interesting point. Maybe, Abdullah, you want to pick up on that. I mean, we've been talking about that the divides within the Taliban and the difficulty and where that might go in terms of the security situation. And as long as also there were all of those other questions that you might have wanted to speak to you as well. So, Abdullah, floor is yours. Thank you, Professor. I think Taliban has committed to various strategic premature mistakes at the beginning days. First of all, was right taking over the Kabul without coordination without having a proper plan and without even communicating this properly among themselves, like among the different groups of the Taliban. And secondly, prematurely announcing an Islamic Emirates that retreating from such a model now put them in a very tough situation. And I think it also included another complementary mistakes, if I may say that they have brought their key pounds, the core, the prominent people right away into the positions that now removing any of them would have a lot of political consequences. Let me elaborate a little bit into that. I mean, the Taliban have been divided, mainly, generally I'm talking into three groups. A political group sitting in Doha, they were dating international community and they were beginning at everyone based on their ethnicities and the countries they were coming. Sometimes they were very liberal when it comes to talking with Europeans, they have been confronting the US, and they have been so rational, so harsh when it comes to the Taliban. So they had the ability of communicating with the different wordings and exploiting different narratives within the system of reality of each individual of us in the past two years. The second group was the military wings within Afghanistan, a group backed by Pakistan, mainly the Haqqanis. The second group and the medal, which was representing by Mullah Yaqub, the son of Mullah Omar, and the ex-experts leader of the Taliban and the third one, the people like Zakhir Qayyum and these kind of people that have been going between Pakistan and Iran and Russia and maybe the other countries. At the first night of Kabul, that was the Haqqanis who entered the Kabul because of their proximity to Pakistan. It took only four hours for them to get into. While the people sitting in Doha, it took three days for them to come to Kandahar, my brother, and the people in the south of Afghanistan, Helmand and Kandahar, Zakhir Qayyum and Ebrahim Sadri, it took one day for them and the people coming from the north, for example, the chief of army staff, and now Fasihuddin, it took at least one day for him to come over from the north to Kabul. And that has been the same case when the government of Mujahideen took over when the Taliban left Kabul. That was predominantly people from Panjshir and Parwan because of an hour proximity to Kabul, they came and captured the institutions there. Capturing an institution is the easiest thing you could do in Afghanistan, but when it comes to responding to institutional demands, this is where the disrespections and conflicts generate itself. And Taliban is facing at the moment the same problem. Which institution, who should have control on that? And they don't know how to do it. We also should be mindful of another fact that violence and insurgency has been a unifying factor, a factor for cooperation and assistance historically. But being inside the government, that has been also a saddest part of the history in Afghanistan that divide the people, it becomes so divisive and that's where the Taliban is facing at the moment. And of course now, if you put this into the context of the pattern and client relationship of the Taliban within the region and beyond, then it will add extra complexity to the conflict. To the public health, to the pile questions about the public health, my suggestion is that we need to make sure that Taliban should not politicize some of the sectors. Specifically, the public health sector. According to the constitution or previous constitution in Afghanistan, public health was free and it was covering every citizen regardless of their political opinion and political ideology. And I think the Taliban should follow the same rationale and the same logic at the moment because they have been benefiting from our public services that international community providing them in a past 20 years in Afghanistan. And I think that's one of the areas that international community must not leave to that the money should dry up. I just learned from the Professor Faten power point that it needs only 38 millions if I may write for WHO to cover for coming months on that area. That's that's I think like a peanuts it's not a big money at all. And when it comes to cons, social, a deconstructed it with me say because some of the wording is also in Afghanistan, Balkanization, Lebanon, liberalization, I don't know these kind of stuff is so controversial in Afghanistan. And then the key question at the moment is whether what kind of modality could bring people's participation in the end to the state and provide an opportunity for the people to cooperate with the state to bring legitimacy and in the meantime it's important to see how the people could see themselves in the international system. I am so sorry to say this that I am so much against this inclusivity, which is totally a Western phenomenon, and has never been the case in Afghanistan to in the past 20 years to I have been myself in the African world for the last 20 years to this moment, we have just misused and expolite it in exclusivity. If a Taliban is even naive, if I would have been the Taliban I would have brought two mattress I don't know students from the shower and I would tell to the people okay if you want the woman to be let these are two women representing the woman in our system. I think exclusivity is a very, very Western phenomenon which never has been deconstructed properly in Afghanistan. I think people participation is important and people participation should not be should not be limited to the participation of a group of elites within the government. I have never, I mean I have been in a ministerial positions and I guess the minister Nihon was there and we never claim that we have been purely representing the people because the people didn't appointed us, we have been appointed because of our political affiliation with a specific power holders within the system and that's where I think it's important to be mindful of just last point about security and institution, I think it's for the Taliban to think about the size of the new security forces in Afghanistan. The previous size, the previous structure was totally dealing with a different situation. Today we are in a different environment, we are in a different and this is where the Taliban is facing the biggest challenge that is how to transform from my young insurgency into an institutionalized discipline of forces. We have been listening to the Taliban leadership in the past one and a half months now that they have never even controlled properly and enough on their soldiers and Kabul like they are doing. I'm sure you have heard that mostly they have ordered their people to do not violate some of the principles but they are doing it on the daily basis. And it means that that cohesion lack of inclusion and that would be another challenge even in the coming few weeks if I would be a fighter of the Taliban for the sake of conversation. The key quest, the key incentive for me is a sale to be there that I could see some sort of benefit for me. The time that I would not see that benefit I will easily turn out easily change my flag from white to I don't know to red or to green or to black. It's just matter of less than a meter. It's just a cloth to find it from somewhere and just claim legitimacy. Thank you, Professor once again. All right, I've got a few more questions here. And I would just if you've got several questions I would ask you to limit them. Limit your questions to just one if that would be possible so I've got Mara Khan, I've got Banu, I've got Mia and I've got a couple of questions from people who have since we left the seminar but I'll ask them for those of you who want to tackle them anyway. The first one here is from Chiara, John. Thank you for these great presentations, which powers could currently have an interest in backing the resistance in Tajikistan and how likely is it that the political leaders warlords and commanders etc can form a coherent resistance movement and rally behind the same goals. So I'll leave that open to those who might want to answer it. I've got one here from in your law. And it says what are the implications of the US and her allies declaring the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan as the pariah state, not at all engaging with that state not to mention legitimizing like government for the conduct of international relations today in the coven 19 era. Again, this is going back to that issue of recognition and again thinking about the G 20 and what's going on right now in New York. And something else to, to consider for those of you who want to answer those questions. So I'm going to ask Mara Khan now to unmute himself and to ask this question. Mara Khan, are you there? I hope you're there. If not, we should call them based on this because Mr. now I'll be you told that you're I'm so sorry for maybe he might not. He was just there he just open briefly maybe there's something problem with the internet because he was he opened his picture a couple of minutes ago. Really? Are you there by any chance. Okay, if you are, I'll come back to you if not I'll read out one of your questions in just a moment. So let me go to and banu Yanar. If you're there. Yeah, hello. I put the question as if it were possible to conduct the poll or survey among the people what would be the percentage of the population that would support Taliban governance. And now that sounded a bit Western and speculative. I'm just curious about the support of local people for Taliban. Thank you. Thank you for that. And Mia, would you like to introduce yourself and ask your question. Sure, thank you. So I'm what I was curious about is we have a few instances where militant actors are able to hold territory, but the problem is, we have a lot of instances where they fail. And so they retreat and so they lose their place and their ability to rule. So part of what I was curious about is whether the panelists thought the Taliban would be able to maintain control of the territory, but also with a rising alternative threat because these tend not to be die ads we tend to see multiple actors. And when we have multiple actors, you know we have the possibility of a very complicated scenario. Yeah, we have Mr. Nobby. Would you like to ask your question. You have to unmute yourself. You just press the mic button at the bottom of the screen, and then we'll be able to hear you. Yeah, it's okay now. Hi to all members will be all doing great. Thanks for hosting such kind of conference regarding the Afghanistan. And Kabul currently, and I know everything under my eyes. So the contemporary issue which is, which is concerning is that most of the female students, they are deprived from their scores from their studies. So still the Taliban don't have any clear plan and vision regarding that. So, what do you think about this issue what will be the next steps of the Taliban and what will be the international community interaction regarding this issue. Thank you so much. So, this is the final round you can, I know there was a lot in there and you can, could take all day to answer all of these questions. So, please feel free to pick and choose, and let me, let me start with fashion to close out your remarks. Okay. Yeah, a lot, a lot to take in and to think about. I think, you know, some of the, we tried to allude to some of the answers for example the resistant movement to it back it. I think, you know, Mr condoni pointed exactly to an argument, I've made before the ideology of Taliban, and the ideology, which is more what we consider a version of radical Salafi ideology, with the Diobandi interpretation, addition to it. And the, the ideology of ISIS K which we consider as a tech Firi ideology are a threat to every surrounding country in the region, and worries Iran, where he's Tajikistan worries, you know, Indonesia in China. And so I think everybody's watching, and that is why right now you're not seeing much happening because they want to see what is going on, and then they'll make so I think there might be enough people to support whatever, depending on what happens with respect to this this idea about you know this recognition versus engagement. I think it's extremely important. Again, as we've been talking about, I think we definitely should engage with institutions we should not leave the population, but that does not mean we have to recognize the government. Again, I think these are false dichotomies that we keep putting recognizing a government is one thing engaging through institutions in order to help individuals as something else. One thing they can engage is giving money to the organizations that need them. As I mentioned the WHO needs money so to in order for the next four months. That's how they can engage by saying to the people of Ransan, we still see you we still hear you versus Taliban as a government right so I think we need to think about again about these things. The other thing about control that Mia was asking I'm going to include a farm. I'm using myself sorry, I'm including a foreign policy article about the Taliban can't control a front side and they go through some of the issues. I don't think with time they'll be able to control. Some things we've touched upon both because of their internal divisions between the fighters and between the commanders. And as I'm telling you said between the different wings of the of Taliban. I think people in the West have not really thought about this much about all these differences and what they have. And let's not forget ISIS K is made out of Taliban ex Taliban military commanders who defected and joined there and so I think they would be waiting for these terms for any Taliban fighter that is not happy and so I think you're absolutely right controlling is different than being able to maintain it and I don't think they're going to be able to maintain with time. I can't give you timeline but I think all the factors and indicators, so there's going to have a hard time, especially now that they're more divided than they were when they were the mujahideen back in the 1990s. At last the international community I think, you know I get a lot of these questions even from Lebanon, right from a lot of these young activists and young students what's the international community going to do what's the international community going to do. And, I mean, I think, Mr. Nihon, I think said it like the international community always comes back with I'm sorry I can't do anything and so as a Lebanese, I have a different outlook maybe about the international community and their effectiveness as a typical scholar or individual and I feel like they don't have are not equipped to intervene in a way that has been as effective as we would like them to be. So they can make some noise they can make some things and that's why, and these organizations at the end of the day are made up of nations and states, and what are the states are going to be willing to do. So I honestly don't see much involvement or willingness to be involved, and that's because there's a lot of fear in terms of they don't know what the future holds, they recognize and realize they've messed up in the last 20 years and no one wanted to talk about why we haven't even, we're not willing to even ask the questions lessons learned properly. I think we have done that engagement here on the panel, but let's be honest within the scholarly community and the policymaking community in the west. They don't really want to hear much about that. So I'll end there. I have a whole nother panel set for that lesson learned discussion like a proper proper discussion about that and some of the issues that Narcissus talked about earlier around corruption which we have not tackled at all. So many of the mistakes that that I've spoken to Abdullah about in terms of the mistakes that were made the kinds of things that we are complicit with. I'm hoping to bring somebody from the special inspector general's office for Afghanistan to come and have a talk with us about some of those revelations, not even revelations, those reports have been out for years. So we will have another conversation about that in the coming months, I hope. Let me pass the baton over to maybe to, I don't know, we'll go back in the order to which we started. So, how about you, why don't you, why don't you offer us your some of your thoughts and any questions answers to those questions. You need to unmute. I always forget to unmute myself. So I'll be very quick because I have to rush to another meeting. So which governments will likely recognize the Taliban, or sorry, will offer support to the resistance. Yeah, it's again too early to say that probably down in the Central Asian states, maybe Russia, and possibly run, you know, and India obviously it's been a national, you know, as I said earlier in the fields itself, you know, the biggest fields big time in Afghanistan. So these countries will most likely join forces and, you know, support the resistance. Again, if the behavior of the Taliban does not change, would I don't believe you know that the behavior of the Taliban will change because at the end of the day we shouldn't forget, you know, that it's a highly ideological group, you know, and ideological groups behavior is mostly informed, you know, by the ideology self rather rational political thinking. And you just announced a question about the US announcing Afghanistan a priori state. Again, it's this is, this is a question that will be answered in the next coming weeks or months because as you know, as we discussed earlier, I think everybody is the whole world is watching the Taliban to see how they will behave, you know, and so far, their behavior has not been very promising. So I wouldn't say yes or I wouldn't say no and a day again, it depends on the large extent on the global and regional political competitions, you know, particularly with the issue of China and India being into play. So that will determine the decision of the US, but what's extremely annoying to us and very disturbing to us as Afghans is that why the US and the Western liberal world allowed the Taliban to come and take power in the first place. That's the question that I have not been able to figure out an answer to come up with an answer to. And with regards to the poll and survey if I think if you do a poll tomorrow and fair and transparent probably 90% of the people will say no, because it's for the end of the day. Ideology is one aspect, you know, this is not the time of ideology, particularly for a country like Afghanistan where poverty is so pervasive. You know, I was, I had a friend who was a researcher and he was going to the Taliban control units a lot. And he told me a story one day that the Taliban go to the villages this was before the Taliban take over power and they were, you know, mobilized gathering people and they were, you know, they were preaching people about like jihad about violence about like liberating the country and stuff and the elders would listen to them and the people the communities would listen to them for like half an hour and an hour and then when they're, you know, a speech and that you know the elders would go to them and said that and would tell the Taliban that wonderful remarks, you know, people but at the same time we also need a clinic here in this village so what can you do about that. And we have to keep in mind this factor that at the end of the day, people's primary primary primary needs are basically survivor rather than ideology. So this is what I had and I have to professor I have to leave jump to another meeting so thank you so much for having in this wonderful webinar, and I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you for joining us. Goodbye, Najib, but I'm going to turn over to Nargis and then to Abdullah for the final remarks on this. Thank you. Well, would you go to citizen support for the Taliban and also maintaining power for the Taliban how difficult or easy it's going to be. Last time when Taliban took power we had civil war in Afghanistan. Basically, on daily basis women were getting kidnapped, they're being raped, they're being killed, men and women. And it was not a secure country at all. So, Taliban came, and they took Afghanistan, at least they brought rule of law. That was the least thing, I mean how fair it was. That's another thing, but at least there was rule of law, there was a government, the civil war started, at least people physically were secure if the government was not after them. But what happened after few years, as soon as they brought security people were asking for their voice, the people were asking for food, they were asking for shelter, they were asking for employment, that Taliban was not able to provide them with any of them. So what happened that you saw the Saludian gradually resistance began to take shape from different in different parts of the country against the Taliban. And by the time that 911 happened, there was already a world and robust resistance against the Taliban inside the country. So imagine at that time they came and they stopped civil war, but still there was resistance against them and people were supporting the resistance. This time they came and literally they destroyed everything that they have built in the last 20 years. So it's not going to be easily accepted by by the people, and there is no way that people will give into what Taliban are trying to do. So you will see that I'm very optimistic that resistance going to take shape for much more quicker than before. And yes, it will also depends partly on how much support the resistance can get from the free countries, because right now, somehow, except one or two country other countries are just waiting and watching to see the situation, and they make their difference. But also one son is a rich country. So I mean Taliban, even they cannot control their own soldiers, they cannot control Kabul. So there's no way that they will have full control over all 34 provinces. That means that the same activities the Taliban were having the resistance will start to have they're going to employ their own taxes on the people. They're going to extract their own mines and they're going to export them and like smuggling like drugs, name money thing that they will be able to generate revenue and then we will be able to continue their fight. So we are exactly where we were in 2002 the only differences that at that time we had the international committee and a new reform government in Kabul and Taliban in the mountain. This time we have Taliban on its own in the palace and we're having other people in resistance in the mountain, and also a good number of Afghans that they are outside the country they are, they are using all their voice civic voice trying to raise and question and precise process and present So I think all this together will be too much for Taliban to to to manage, especially that they could not deliver on the very basic promises that they made to the people they literally lied to everybody they say that we are, we have changed we have become more educated, we are going to govern Afghanistan differently, but we saw that that didn't happen. So, and no one can trust Taliban anymore, no one can trust the supporters of Taliban anymore, and, and the point is that everybody will look into action and the action when you look at the Taliban what they are doing, you see that they haven't changed a lot at all, they have become much more brutal, even then before. So, you will see that resistance is going to be there. The other good example that we have is the woman uprising. I remember so many times when we were talking about women's right Taliban, when the whole peace process started, everybody was blaming us that oh you're a small number of women elites in Kabul, what you're asking is only like for yourself and a small group of you. I mean, women in the ruler of Afghanistan, other women they don't, like they don't listen, they don't agree with you, and they're not asking for the rights that you're fighting. And the wife of Ambassador Khalil said, she even wrote an article on all of us criticizing us that your fire, your right is your own fight, it's not us, we don't expect us to fight it for you. But look what happened, most of those women, I talked to them, they said that we got so frustrated that suddenly Taliban came, we were set at home, we lost our job, we had to feed our family members beside ourselves, we had no income, and we didn't know about our future. So they said, one day, two, three, finally after two days, they blasted, they said, we went out, we said, even if they kill us, we have to raise our voice, and we have to tell them that we want to get back to work. So remember, like these people, it's not about like rights that you like, it's about say something, it's about very basic rights that without them they cannot live. A woman who has seven members of the family dependent on her, because she has lost her husband or father or there's no male member in the family, what do you expect her to do now? So sooner or later she is going to come out, not for those rights to make a decision to travel, but for the rights to work and to be able to feed her family. So I think with the way that they're governing and with the way that they're ruling, this itself is going to strengthen the resistance against them, this itself is going to create more uprising against them. The point is that how do we manage the situation to make sure that Afghanistan is not moving ahead to another catastrophe because it's also not managed properly, we'll take Afghanistan to another civil war. So I just want to remember one thing that beside being a highly ideological group, they're also criminals, they're also very much an ethnocentric group that end of the day we saw what they did in Panjshir, we saw what they did in Baikundi. So yeah, I mean, we need to move ahead, but if you ask me, I don't think Taliban took power because the power was basically given to them, they didn't take it. And now maintaining that, there's no way that they can do that. So you get the final word on all of this and setting the future of Afghanistan for what you want it to be, what you hope it can be. Professor I see from your face I read it that you did a wonderful job and you are so exhausted. I'll just finish this conversation with just one paragraph that I would like to really love you for that. International community has a political and moral responsibility towards the people of Afghanistan. They have every right to criticize and blame either the ruling elites including myself, or their selves, but at the end of the day we need to be mindful that 30 million people, if they could not find food shelter. And these basics, life's needs, they will die. And according to the many accounts, we are talking about 18 millions people that if they would not receive within few weeks assistance, they would be facing with a danger to their life. And I really hope that international debate would shift from blaming each other, I have been doing it myself. I am crazily frustrated and inferiorated on myself, on my colleague in the peace structure and on the president and circle. But it's not a strategy. And I have seen that the same mistake is repeating itself in Washington. Last night, the chief stuff for me and the defense minister was in Congress to blaming each other and now this blame has gone to another level to the presidential level I think this is not a strategy. And thanks to you that you're putting this very critical questions in front of all of us, what's the future and how we can reach out to the people. And that's where I think I would very briefly touch upon the topic of recognition versus engagement. I think we don't need to engage only within this tradition of Taliban we need to engage with the people of Afghanistan. It's a totally different thing to a third party to the third parties because that has been the case in the past 20 years. We need to be very mindful that nobody again, it's for lighted and take advantage of this humanitarian hate to people of Afghanistan, whether that's you when we're charging 30% I don't know sometimes 50 to 70% of administrative or a manipulated government or an early greedy elite in Kabul, which was myself part of it in the past. So that's that's my humble suggestions as a final suggestions, not for the sake of me, but for the sake of the people of Afghanistan. And thank you once again to you, Professor for doing a wonderful job. And I enjoyed and I learned so much from the other panelists. Thank you to everyone. And to the audience, of course, that they have made more than two hours to listen to us over to you back. Yeah, it's been a huge pleasure just to hear what everybody else has had to say I mean I have my own thoughts on all this but I really wanted to get a perspective that I've been trying to get for, you know, for months now. What, what do the Afghans have to say about this. And, and really to get a harder, deeper look at how all of you are thinking about these issues rather than thinking about them purely from a what's good for the West perspective and as you were just saying a second to go. Who's to blame for what and, well, you know, I think there are lessons to be learned there, but the big question that has to be tackled right now is what happens to these people they are literally starving and dying. And that's pointing fingers at each other right now isn't really going to help them get through this period and I think there's a question about the country does go back to a civil war which looks like could happen within. Three weeks to three years, then. How do we respond? Should we respond? Should we support? Should we engage? I'm still not sure that everybody has sorted out their thoughts on that within our governments. And I think that's part of the conversation that's going to happen at the G20 so. Appreciate all of you for contributing to all of this. Yeah, this is. Thank you so much to Danny to Danielle McDivitt, who's helped us organize all of this on behalf of Kings. I'm really grateful to her for all of the support in, you know, the endless changes to the the bios and our and our panelists changes and everything else. Thank you so much, Danny for all of your help. And we'll post all of this online in the coming week or so, I hope, and thank you so much to all of you for participating and for an excellent conversation. So probably panelists and hopefully things will change on the ground for the better. Bye bye and see you at another hopefully at another session in the future.