 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Professor Ajaz Ahmad and we'll be discussing the situation arising out of the talks that the U.S. and the Taliban have been having. Ajaz, how do you read this situation? The United States has been having negotiations with Taliban in Doha and it seems that President Trump wants to move out of Afghanistan and therefore having this meeting in Beijing which was Pakistan Russia, China and the United States. It seems that Pakistan is now being asked to take care of Afghanistan and that is a new strategic alignment because for a long time Pakistan was seen as the major destabilizer in Afghanistan by the United States. India seems to be out of the mix completely. So how do you read this realignment which seems to be in the process? Well, one thing is that if Pakistan is seen as the potential destabilizing factor, then that is the factor that needs to be brought in. So that's how I see it, Pakistan's presence in that. I think Trump certainly would like to be able to say to his following in the United States that I promised that I would get out of Pakistan and look, this is how far we have come and we are getting out of Pakistan and so on and so forth. So there seems to be some intention, some serious intention. From the point of view, what works well for the elections in the United States. Now, there does seem to be a situation where the Taliban are meeting the entire spectrum of Afghan society. They have of course refused to meet officially with the government and therefore government high officials cannot meet them even in private capacity. But some lower level officials of the government, they have agreed to meet purely in private capacity. So that's one very interesting factor that their refusal to meet this so-called government of Afghanistan, running and so on, has not derailed the peace talks. That to me is very interesting that Americans seem to be willing to sell these people off and so you're just fired them as they need in South Vietnam. They have no qualms about that. And it's also very interesting that Hamid Karzai explained a major role he himself was present in Moscow and his clansmen were very prominent in Doha although he himself did not come. So they seem to be interlocutors. The seriousness of the Taliban is shown by very high level officials, high level people in the Taliban government or Taliban organization who are not leading the delegations openly and so on. So all of that is there. The very interesting thing, the meeting actually was in Moscow where the Russians were the main players and it was only after that in Beijing, the United States and China also joined. So there seems to be a multi-pronged development going on there. All the pieces seem to be in place and they're saying in the last meeting in Doha, they were saying that 80 to 90 percent of the Qatar government announced that 80 to 90 percent of the agreement seems to be in place and they're astonished how close they are. And there is some hope that there might be an agreement by September 1st. Now all of this being there, the question is the Taliban controlled 70 percent of the country at the moment. The moment the peace agreement is signed or seems to be signed, the rest of the country will move over to them. And presumably the Afghanistan government at least top sections of it will have to leave the country like the shall we say the DM government and so on. We just don't know how this will actually play out. You're right, Ghani and so on, but there's a blood, there's 20 years of blood all post, it's 19 years of blood in which Hamid Karzai is as much an enemy as Ghani is today, Ghani is just today and so on. So on the one hand, yes, there is a custom to sort of make peace only with your enemies who has to be made peace with etc. So all of that is there. My actually my interest is in seeing what do Americans get out of this? They cannot concede Afghanistan through the Taliban and just walk out on the one hand. Well, there is the Trump issue that comes in because he said, I think in an interview about a month back, that I do not want war, I think with Fox News, Dr. Carlson, that I don't want war and I have brought down from 16,000 American troops to 9,000. I want to get out of Afghanistan. Do you think that's really what he's planning to do? Well, I mean, you can't make war in Iran and make peace in Afghanistan. You know what I mean? So, well, if you're Trump, maybe you can't. In Trump's words, there is probably some notion there. What is it? How many contradictory opinions can you hold at one point of time? Use Karol. Okay. And the other thing is that, you know, the news is very scanty, very sparse, but in all the news that is available to us, there is no discussion of where Iran is in all this. Now, Iran is a major player in Afghanistan. It has hosted millions of refugees in the past. It's still hosting a very large number of them. There's a whole area of influence inside of Afghanistan, that of Iran. Iran is said to be a long involvement. It's a major interested party. The Hazara's and so on, which are very close to Iran. It's not anywhere in these negotiations or in any news coverage of, you know, outside the negotiations, what they are going on, etc. So there are large areas of ambiguity in this. But the biggest one for me is, is the United States really going to concede Afghanistan to them? All right. Here is my reading of the situation. What they really want is for some sort of an agreement to sort of decide to take place, which can then be presented to the United States as we have brought peace to Afghanistan. And now we are just sort of bobbing it up. So I think it is really for, you know, optics. My sense is that so many very, very diverse agreements have negotiations and agreements have to be executed inside of one society, which is by now extremely fragmented and conflictual. That just this kind of agreement you know, and so on. This is not going to bring peace. This can only create a framework within which negotiations inside that society can take place. Because Afghanistan is, you know, it's a very different kind of society. And after 20 years of warfare, the kinds of conflicts that exist inside the society are very, very, very great. The number of terrorist organizations, if that's the word we want to use, that are floating around in the Pakistan-Pakistan border, various branches of al-Qaeda, the, you know, the Daesh is there, the Tariq, Tariq, and Pakistan is there, and all that. How are you going to have a negotiating framework in which all these forces can be taken out of that region? So my sense is that there are lots of optics involved, there are, you know, but what the best possible scenario is that they get to a point where violence de-escavates and they can have some sort of a ceasefire agreement or something of that sort. Whether or not that is possible, I'm not very sure. Because the only thing that Tariq want to have going with them is their firepower. They are the only ones who can bring peace with the gun, with all other, in respect to all other Afghan forces. Yeah, but you know, if they come to an agreement, a peace agreement, then what is the leverage for them? So it's very hard to see how any kind of settlement, some sort, even stability, a stable situation can be achieved. So what you're saying is there can be an agreement, but at best it will be the start of a process. But the process is a difficult and a long one, particularly reconciliation within the Afghan society itself after 20 years of bloodshed. That's the basic thing that you're really putting on the table. And hopefully the United States, instead of a destabilizing force, will gracefully be in a corner and hopefully withdraw out of the mix? I don't think they will. You don't think they will? They just bought in Daesh into Afghanistan within the last six months, after all. You think that's a part of their contribution? I mean, there's news whether or not it's true, we don't know, but there's a very credible news that they were flown in on American airdrops. They didn't just sneak into Daesh and there are areas where they are fighting the Taliban. So you bring in that and you think under that pressure, the Taliban are going to concede the ground for you. You must be mad. So the pieces don't. That is why I think it's not of these optics. One last point, Praveer, is that I think the media is overplaying this question of Trump has to say this to his family. I think there's some exaggeration in saying that Trump needs to present this to his following here. Afghanistan is not a major issue in American politics right now. Actually, right now in American politics, it's not an issue at all, because there's so many other issues. The biggest foreign policy issues are China and Iran, not about this. Afghanistan, there's hardly any mention of it anywhere. And there are these explosive things going on inside this country. So he's being able to say, oh, this peace agreement in Afghanistan is not going to make that much of a difference to it. I was thinking that before we break this, wind this up. Last point, I wanted to ask you and let me frame this independently. Yes, apart from what's happening in Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan, which we have discussed, do you also see that the United States is finally recognizing that a peace process in Afghanistan needs China and Russia as well? Yes, but they are recognizing it only under US because they have no cards to play. Taliban have really won. So at the moment, this containing Taliban means inviting others to help, except as you have noted Iran. And that's really the issue. Yeah, that's right. That again shows how far Americans can go. You can't really put Iran out of the picture. But this is quite extraordinary. And that's why the meeting in Moscow actually struck me very much that all the funds were going to Moscow. The delegation that went to Moscow, the other funds, was much, much more powerful than the ones that went to the war. The cream of their fund politics outside the current government went to Moscow. Because they see Moscow as a force who could talk to Iran and the emerging scenario in Afghanistan. Iran is necessary for peace. And the balancing power and the power that had to get the distribution after Syria, after the victory in Syria. And the role it was playing with Iran. Thank you very much, Ajaz, for being with us, explaining to us what the larger contours of the picture that is emerging in Afghanistan. Hope for peace, I guess all around the world, that this will really culminate in something which is a durable peace and not the peace of the gun. Thank you very much. We'll be in touch with you and discuss other issues as well. This is all the time we have a news click today. Thank you very much. Do keep watching news click.