 Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, is presently in the United Arab Emirates. Ghani had fled Kabul, the country's capital, last Sunday, after Taliban fighters surrounded the city. In a Facebook post after his departure, Ghani said he believed countless patriots would be murdered and the city of Kabul would be destroyed if he had stayed behind. According to a statement issued by the UAE foreign ministry on Wednesday, the Afghanistan president and his family were welcomed on humanitarian grounds. Joining us is Pyotr Kuzin, an independent geopolitical analyst. Hello Pyotr Kuzin. Hello, great to be here. Thank you for having me. How are you doing? Yes, very well. Stressful given these circumstances, haven't had much sleep in the past couple of days, but hopefully things will begin to calm down in the next few days, but we'll have to see. Okay, so what is your general overview of what has played out in Afghanistan? Oh wow, that is the question of the hour I think. I would say that the fact that the United States did pull out is not a surprise. That was always the intention given the administration that came before Biden with Donald Trump. I think what has surprised everybody is the rate at which they increasingly did so. Obviously Biden delayed the registered departure of May to September, but then decided to still ramp up the evacuation over the past couple of months and that's sort of, should we say emboldened the Taliban to increase their advancements and we've seen one of the fastest captures of a country, I think, in recent memory, going from July 8th when Biden and the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson both said independently of each other that there wouldn't be a military takeover by the Taliban to here we are today and with seeing the events on Sunday that the Taliban have indeed taken Kabul is significant. Not just for the country but for the broader region and of course the international community. What kind of future do you foresee for Afghans under the Taliban regime? Well, there are many caveats to that. I would say one is there's going to be a big difference between women and men. We've seen obviously in the past couple of days including, you know, even on a very own news anchor, women supposedly being allowed to work as news anchors, but, you know, we have to question whether or not that's a legitimate thing or whether or not it's just a PR stunt by the Taliban for the time being until the sort of world's attention shifts back to, you know, other issues and things become a little bit more sort of stabilised in the country. I think it's going to be very dependent upon the type of government that the Taliban forms. Namely whether or not they might, there's discussions on going with previous leaders of the country who were leaders after the Taliban fell. And so maybe we could see either an entire Taliban government or maybe some kind of combination of previous Afghanistan government members and the Taliban members. And that will obviously very much to influence how many people are able to, you know, just live normally, the freedoms that they have and so on. So I think the next week, two weeks is going to be crunch time to see how and what way the Taliban wants to sort of try and rule the country. What do you expect to see from the world's different power blocks in the coming days, the U.S. and the West on one hand, Russia and China on the other? That's a good question. So I focus a lot on great power politics now given that the United States and its allies have fully pulled out or in the process of completing their final vacations from Kabul Airport. I would say that this is the this is their golden opportunity for so we say countries that have always been slightly belligerent or antagonistic to to the Western countries. So Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan are all going to be looking at this as an opportunity to have a big influence in the region. Counterbalance against, you know, the U.S.'s interests. India is a very interesting one because it is also the largest democracy, the only real existing democracy in the country. They have obviously a long standing history of Afghanistan and given its its history like Afghanistan, sort of oppression, colonial rule, interference by other powers. I think there's going to be a lot a lot to play from India. Russia has been an important player for peace-broking. It was one of the first countries to sort of allow a group of Taliban members to come to Moscow to to sort of discuss the idea of establishing peace in the country. And then China is obviously there, given its international influence, but also its treatment of the Awakens, which is a small Muslim group in the northwestern part of the country. And when I say small, it's a few million. But yes, that's still something that the Taliban have been aware of. So the CCP will be wanting to sort of, shall we say, be on the better side of the Taliban to avoid sort of unnecessary destabilisation potential, you know, terrorism. Do you think... That's more my projection. Sorry. Yeah, while you're making that projection, do you think that the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan will breed terrorism across the globe? Well, the Taliban was created, you know, to fend off the invasion of the Soviets in the 1980s out of, you know, the Mujahedin. But they quickly became a place that extremist groups or people with extreme ways of thinking could sort of exist coexist and develop. There is a there is an existing faction within the Taliban group called the Haqqani. And they are the main sort of, shall we say, military and financial aim. And the head of that group is one of the most senior members of the Taliban. As to what now in an agreement with the Doha argument that signed by the United States and Taliban back in February 2020, the it was agreed that the United States would pull out as long as the Taliban didn't allow Islamic extremists to to re, you know, reemerge in the form of predominantly Al-Qaeda, but also Islamic State have had pockets in Afghanistan. Now, the US pulled out, but not in the way that it was originally agreed by the Taliban. So the Taliban may well think over time, depending upon again, type of government that they get and how easily they can secure the rest of the country, because we're seeing protests at the moment. That may well be a source for Al-Qaeda to resurface. There is a potential that the country could become a hub for sort of, you know, terrorism. But that is something I don't want to assume. I've been asking beyond Afghanistan, do you see that breeding terrorism across the world beyond what we already see today? I don't know about breeding, but it's certainly emboldened existing terrorist groups. I mean, we've heard of reports of Boko Haram. The terrorist group in Somalia, I forget the name for a minute, both have been emboldened and there were reports. I've read that the terrorist group in Somalia, forgive me for forgetting the name, was celebrating. Yes, thank you. We're celebrating the the the win, if you like, the the the victory of the Taliban, and it gives them a certain belief that, you know, they they can increase their operations again. Or, you know, that the West is really retreating from its from its role as sort of preventing terrorism or engaging in counterterrorism. So it may well read Islamic sentiments around other parts that have had it before. But that being said, Afghanistan is a particular case. And even what we've been seeing discussing in recent months in the UN Security Council about counterterrorism efforts, which is supported by all countries, irrespective of whether they're in, you know, on the side of the US or not, Russia, China, the US is the three major powers at the moment, sort of all agree that terrorism is something that they want to come down. So hopefully they won't. But who's to say? Well, do you think that world powers, the international community, can prevent or limit any kind of spread of terrorism across the globe? So one of the three main topics that the Indian delegation have wanted to focus on this year this month was there in the presidency is counterterrorism. I think that was a preemptive move to a certain extent by the Indian government because they could see it wasn't going on in Afghanistan and because, obviously, it's very near much the sphere of influence or interest. So whether or not we can actively prevent any form of terrorism is, you know, we can't stop pockets of extreme people just popping up. And unfortunately, but we can certainly create better frameworks and collective coordination to to prevent terrorism. Terrorism is a transnational issue, much like climate change or covid. And given how poorly we've seen the international community respond to covid, you know, I hope that we could do a best job with terrorism. And as we move forward in the world, more and more issues are going to be transnational, transcending traditional boundaries. And so I think I think we will be able to I don't want to be unrealistic either. All right. Well, thank you. I'm trying to call your name. Can you just call yourself? No, it's pleasure. Thank you very much for having me. Thanks for your time and insight and all the best. Thank you. And to you. And don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.