 Good afternoon and welcome to this IIEA webinar on Afghanistan as the crossroads. This is part of the IIEA's Global Europe Project and is sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs. We're delighted to be joined today by Ms. Metta Knudsen, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General in the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, that is UNAMA. Ms. Knudsen will speak to us for about 20-25 minutes and we will then go to a question and answer session. Both the formal presentation and the Q&A are on the record. Please feel free to send your questions in during the formal presentation and we will come to them later. You can do so by using the Q&A function on your screen. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the hashtag at IIEA and we are also live streaming this event so a very warm welcome to anybody joining us on YouTube. It's now a great pleasure for me to formally introduce Ms. Metta Knudsen and hand over to her. Metta Knudsen was appointed by the Secretary General as Deputy Special Representative Political for Afghanistan with UNAMA in January 2021. Prior to her appointment she served as Ambassador of Denmark to Afghanistan. She has held several senior positions with her Foreign Ministry and she has been Ambassador to Kenya, to Ethiopia, to Greece and Cyprus. Ms. Knudsen is a member of the Nordic Women Mediators. I hand the floor to you, Metta. Thank you very much Ambassador Wilhelm and thanks to colleagues at the Institute of International and European Affairs for inviting me to this seminar webinar. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to be here with you to speak on the topic of Afghanistan and the role of the United Nations. We were afraid that Afghanistan would have slipped down the list of global priorities following the withdrawal of international troops in August last year and given events in Ukraine. But luckily that has not been the case as demonstrated at the pledging conference last week where donors gave quite an amazing level of support for Afghanistan. What happens in Afghanistan is also still extremely relevant to global affairs. From the heart security concerns of global terrorism and regional stability to important issues such as advancing a normative agenda that includes especially the rights of women and girls. We at UNAMA have had to grapple with these issues over the past seven months in ways that we have never anticipated. And to expire its nature must contend with dilemmas. But few dilemmas were as stark as those UNAMA faced in our August last year when the former government of Afghanistan dissolved and the country fell to the Taliban. The UNAMA recognized entity led by sanctioned individuals. They took over a country brought economic systems to a standstill and challenged the international community with the dilemma of how to engage with unrecognized authorities to continue to support the Afghan people. In this situation, the United Nations took the decision to stay and deliver to support the people of Afghanistan. The UNAMA had to stay if only to continue to support humanitarian operations and furthermore the United Nations have been present in Afghanistan in some form or other since 1949. We knew we needed to remain in some form. The question that we did face was whether or not that form should be political. The UNAMA is a special political mission and its continued presence created a number of secondary dilemmas. Could we engage pragmatically on issues of great potential impact to individual Afghans, such as human rights or rule of law, without unduly legitimizing a regime that had overturned a democratically elected government by force. The UNAMA first obtained the legitimacy from the Afghan people and that had a history of gender discrimination and human rights abuses, as well as having had having used in this indiscriminate attacks as a tactic of war and killed thousands of civilians. And that had shown very few signs of reform or moderation to the demands of the Afghan people. In mid-August 2021, nobody knew how the Taliban's sudden accession to power would be translated into basic governance and what policy options the new leadership would adopt. The initial engagement with the de facto authorities was on the whole positive, with fairly rapid protection offered to UN premises and personnel, and the proclamation of a general amnesty to members and servants of the former republic. There were high hopes at that time that after an initial spate of disorder and revenge killings bad as that would be, the leadership would progressively assert control over its disparate forces and enforce that promised amnesty. While many Afghans associated with the former republics succeeded in escaping, the reality was that far more Afghans stayed behind to see what the new regime amounted to. And many civil society activists, academics and others sought UNAMA's assistance in playing a mediating role with the new authorities in the hope that a modus vivendi could be found. And an important element of our previous mandate committed us to supporting a government that no longer existed, and that mandate therefore to a large extent provided little guidance. The Security Council chose to defer a decision on a new mandate for UNAMA until last month. But what the Secretary General proposed some months ago to the Security Council, as the basis for the new mandate was to begin political engagement with what the UN referred to as the de facto authorities, the Taliban regime on several clearly defined terms. First of all, the engagement has as a primary objective, the improvement of the lives of the Afghan people, but it acknowledged the reality that this could not be achieved without some engagement with the de facto authorities. Secondly, while carrying out this qualified engagement, we had to be acutely conscious of the risk that our objective of supporting the Afghan people could be perceived as one of legitimizing the Taliban authorities, and that this needed to be mitigated as the objective of recognizing a government of course rests with our member states. And thirdly, the engagement was experimental. We based ourselves on the hypothesis that the Taliban was willing to move away from extremism and violence, and towards actions and norms required to be a part of the international community. And two, that as we test this hypothesis, we need to keep our eyes open, and to be able to change strategy, if it appeared that this hypothesis was false. The Security Council to a large extent gave UNAMA such a mandate suggested by the, and in line with what was suggested by the Secretary General. But only shortly thereafter that the Taliban took a number of the decisions that have forced us to seriously question the hypothesis I just mentioned. The most prominent of these decisions was to prevent girls above grade six from going to school. While senior Taliban officials made public announcements that schools would reopen in the days running up to 23rd of March, the morning of the reopening of schools. The morning of the reopening of schools girls were turned away from secondary schools, which remained closed for them. For months, the international community had signaled that this decision to allow girls to return to secondary education was a necessary step. If the Taliban wished to gain international legitimacy. But the international community was by no means alone in wanting to see the Taliban enable all children return to school. The Human Rights Watch 87% of Afghans want their children to be educated, regardless of gender. So the Taliban's decision does not reflect the wishes of the population that they claim to represent and govern. In terms of education, not only violates the equal rights of women and girls to education, but also jeopardizes the country's future in view of the tremendous potential contributions of Afghan women and girls. The long term impacts of such a discriminatory decision discriminatory decision will affect future generations of Afghan females in terms of literacy and numeracy, and will contribute to the cycle of poverty. A couple of weeks ago, I visited public and private universities in Kabul. As the public university recently opened their doors, seeing women back in the park and in the halls of Kabul University really gave me some hope. But this optimism has been dashed by this announcement on girls secondary education. If this decision is not reversed, soon there will not be any female students entering university, even if the universities would not be closed earlier by the de facto authorities which still remains a risk. So this decision also led to condemnation by the international community, including the United Nations Security Council, and the organization of Islamic cooperation. For girls, education is not the only one which causes concern. In the days following the education decision, a slew of repressive measures from the de facto authorities were issued, which further restricted the civic space for Afghans. They restricted Afghan women from traveling from Kabul International Airport without a maharam, a male jabaroon. They instructed that public parks must be gender segregated by prescribed days, and they bought male civil servants from going to work if their peers were not sufficiently long. And this has been followed by a more recent instruction to the universities that women and men cannot attend the same scientific conference, or even participate in the same programs. With all the concerns that that raises around academic freedom and general keeping the level of quality at the universities. But from these most recent additional restrictions, the overall situation for Afghan women and girls remains extremely challenging. Life for women without a maharam, for example, widows or female headed households becomes almost impossible. As women women continue to experience exclusive exclusion from civil service employment and access to justice and protection for survivors of gender based violence remains extremely limited at best. The economic crisis has in the dire situations forced families to choose extreme coping mechanisms with stories emerging of those resorting to the sale of children or forced early marriage of girls. The media is becoming more and more restricted with the factor authorities aiming to control content. Descending views continue to be silenced including protests that counter the de facto authorities narrative civil society activists and journalists are being arrested beaten and harassed. As someone put it someone put it recently a tweet could put your life at risk. Recently, the de facto authorities instructed Afghan media to suspend any transmission of international media broadcast. It is thus very important that the international community continues to support the media and civil society and especially also women led organizations, so that they can continue to operate in Afghanistan. I mentioned that the ones looming Afghan culture of music dance and art is completely silenced. While some of the media still have women anchors restrictions are placed on radio stations to invite women women to their live shows live music is banned radio music is limited to traditional or religious music. There are paintings on the walls within Kabul city, which everybody who's visited Kabul will have noticed, they are now replaced by white walls. The color of the city is gone, as is the vibrant cultural life of Afghans. We continue to document and verify credible reports of extra judicial killings arbitrary detention in force disappearances torture ill treatment intimidation of a wide range of individuals men and women victims of such violations include members of civil society, as well as those who fall under the provisions of the general amnesty announced by the Taliban, when they came to power, they are former defense and security personnel, former government officials and civil servants. And additionally, you know, has also documented the killings of individuals accused of affiliation with ISKP or dies. What we try to stress to the de facto authorities is that they need to start taking a stronger position in preventing human rights violations and abuses, and where they do occur, they should undertake prompt effective and transparent investigations. The de facto Ministry of Justice indicated that existing laws continue to apply, pending their review of compliance with Sharia. The new court system has been set up by Taliban but as to date, almost eight months after the takeover. There is a lack of clarity on which legislation is being applied, and instructions are being provided on an ad hoc basis. There is a lack of integration of former justice personnel in the current justice system, and the absence of an inclusive engagement with communities and justice issues further undermines the legitimacy of the de facto authorities vis-à-vis the Afghan people. Since the takeover by the Taliban, the state of governance remains ambiguous. After all, power seems to be vested in the executive pillar. The cabinet is composed of 25 ministers with strong religious backgrounds and the vast majority being passed to and of course all are male. And the appointments of subnational senior officials show similar trends. What we have observed is that major decisions however seem not to be taken by the cabinet, but elsewhere in the Taliban structure, and the decision making processes remain unclear in the absence of clearly defined mechanisms and systems of governance, such as a constitution. But while improvised explosive devices, assassinations and Taliban house-to-house search operations continue, we should stress that a low level of security incidents have been reported in Afghanistan over the previous months. We must be analyzing conjunction with the drastically changed security environment as hostilities throughout the country declined, also leading to a sharp drop in civilian casualties, which of course is positive. The Taliban continue to claim that the ISIS ISKP are not a threat and are completely wiped out from Afghanistan. Reports on the ground indicates otherwise as ISKP claimed or attributed attacks continue. The Taliban also continue to face some attacks that are claimed by the National Resistance Fronts and other newly emerging resistance groups. And I should also mention that border tensions with neighboring countries such as Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian countries continue. And all of these developments are occurring within a dramatic economic and humanitarian situation, which definitely demand more attention from the de facto authorities. Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic humanitarian crisis which fundamentally also amounts to a human rights crisis with over half of the country's approximately 40 million population needing humanitarian and protection assistance. In 2021, humanitarian partners delivered food, clean water, healthcare and other humanitarian assistance to close to 20 million people in Afghanistan. And the pledging conference on 31st of March that I mentioned at the beginning, co-hosted by the UN and member states including governments of Qatar, the United Kingdom and Germany, resulted in pledges of more than $2 billion for humanitarian quite an impressive figure taking the present global situation into account. But we need to stress that humanitarian assistance alone is not enough. Other challenges to the economy still remain. The economic situation is deteriorating quickly and challenges to international payments and on the central bank persist. The budget of liquidity has forced businesses to close, including the ones fledgling manufacturing such sector and left 80% of people in debt. In addition, development assistance has almost completely ceased since the takeover by the Taliban. From our side from you know we have taken all possible measures to inject liquidity into the economy, including the physical import of cash. And also the international community has taken steps forward and considered options to increase engagement beyond humanitarian assistance to address the huge economic challenges. However, the recent restrictions announced by the Taliban question their claim to engage in good faith with the international community with the aim to improve the situation for all people of Afghanistan. The Taliban faces a different society when that when they last ruled the country, they may not be able to respond to the demands of this change society. If the Taliban continue the path of repression, and their inability to live up to the change from being an insurgency to a government. If they continue that inability the Taliban risks that they will not gain legitimacy in the eyes of the Afghan people. Respecting human rights and inclusive governance girls education and being a government for all people of Afghanistan would also be in the interest of the Taliban should they wish to stay in power. Not as to what direction they will turn, but the Taliban will have to make that choice before it is too late. The international community including the neighbors and the organization of Islamic cooperation is united that the Taliban must deliver on three issues, girls education, political inclusiveness and counterterrorism guarantees. In the sense that some Taliban interlocutors are willing to be attentive to international concerns on these issues, especially actually on the education side where the criticism of this decision reaches far into the ranks of the Taliban. But unfortunately, there are also those within the Taliban that seem not to be willing to be attentive to these international concerns. We do not believe that we've seen the final words on these issues however. And in our political engagement we have come to realize that the Taliban faces a number of dilemmas as well related to the difficult process of transitioning from an ideological insurgency with a common outcome to a functioning government with multiple priorities and rising expectations. So we are only at the beginning of this process. And while we continue to engage, we will, we are sure that this process will continue to be frustrating. It will have setback, but it is also essential if we are to continue our support to the long suffering Afghan people. So let me end my initial remarks here and looking forward to the discussions and the questions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That is, it's quite a depressing picture. If I could start off the questions by asking you, are there any signs that the present de facto authority is open to dialogue with others, either internally or externally. I know there was a meeting I think a week ago in Beijing with neighboring countries. Is there any indication that they're listening to messages that would move forward on the three particular areas you identified. Our impression is definitely that they are to some extent willing to engage. We have had numerous interactions with de facto ministers with leaders within the Taliban. And we are also aware that the de facto foreign minister Mutaki participated in the meetings in China with the neighboring countries. And the challenge we see is that it seems that the decision making is read is vested within circles that are not necessarily those that we have most engagement with. So we are continuing to try and see if we can expand our in the group of interlocutors and getting a better access also to those leaders of the Taliban that we might not have reached so far. But again, as I have tried to say in my speech, I think that the most important influence is the influence of the Afghan people and the fact that they are not a range of issues are very clear that they are not happy with the present policies of the Taliban. So for us to engage not only directly with the Taliban but also in support of the Afghan people's possibilities of influencing the Taliban I think is very important. Could I ask you just in that context. What is the status what is the position of civil society at the moment if I'm in Afghanistan you mentioned the pressure that's on the media. We have seen the protests of Afghan women taken to the streets and making their voices heard. Is it very difficult for them is the first question and the second question that I have that's tied into that in part. How can Ireland, how can we in Ireland, how can we support and assist and the safeguarding and so far as they can be safeguarded of the rights of the Afghan people. Thank you very much. It's clear that the civil society is under a lot of pressure. They are of course, many of the more high profile civil society leaders that have left Afghanistan, because of concerns for their safety. But they are also quite a lot of civil society activists women activists that are still here and still trying to to keep up their activities both in Kabul and out in the provinces. In some areas, they have managed to establish a dialogue with the authorities sometimes facilitated also by our field offices in other parts of the country they are under a lot of pressure and and it's it's very difficult for them to to operate. I would say that the picture is mixed. It's only a few days ago where there was a large civil society gathering here in Kabul with more than 280 civil society representatives both men and women present and also representatives of the Taliban. We did not participate ourselves directly in this event, but we understand that there was quite a good dialogue and there was a willingness from the Taliban side to listen. But that's only part of the picture of course on the other side we have seen the crackdown on on women activists we have. We are aware of course of threats and intimidation directed towards such activists. So, so it is definitely not an easy situation. I think in terms of support brought from both from Ireland and others, what we keep encouraging is to for donors to try and keep up some of their support that they were available for civil society before the regime change. And this is even more necessary now to to continue to provide especially also core funding for for civil society for women's networks for them to to to continue to keep activities going and also still be there when when opportunities arise. So, so financial support is definitely important, but but of course also continued moral support engagement, and making sure that we always bring those civil society activists, women activists that are inside Afghanistan, bring them also to the different forums to the different tables where they can make their voices heard. Of course, with due respect for their security concerns but but that's one of the things that they continuously ask for please don't just listen to diaspora Afghans please let Afghans that are in the country have a voice. Thank you. There's a question here from Adrian Farrell from the Department of Foreign Affairs. What do the Taliban think of the recently agreed you now a mandate. And the second another question I have here from Sheamus Allen, talking about sanctions against Afghanistan, and he asked for your views on US and Western sanctions, including US freezing of Afghan central bank assets. So, when it comes to the mandate, the de facto authorities have welcomed the new Unama mandate, and have expressed their willingness to continue to work with us. But the extent to which that would will will continue is of course probably linked to whether they see the engagement with us and with the international community as delivering some of the objectives that they are pursuing. And that's of course linked to to the international recognition to also removal of sanctions and so on. And what we are expressing to them is that them with decisions such as those on education for example they have taken a step backwards from that pathway that could lead them towards at some point, maybe being recognized and being welcomed as a legitimate part of the international community. I mean the sanctions to a large extent are directed at individuals and based on specific concerns also related to counter terrorism and so on. And that's of course for to a large extent for member states to decide when they should be lifted. But where we have been engaging is mainly on the economic side, trying to stress that the sanctions against individuals should not mean that we are undermining the whole of the Afghan economy to the detriment of the Afghan people. And now we have also engaged so actively in terms of seeing if we can resolve some of the issues around the banking sector. This includes of course, close engagement with the US authorities. And we have had some progress on that and, although there's been recently a setback because of this education decision but we are continuing the dialogue, both with the Afghan Central Bank, and the US authorities in terms of trying to find solutions that would allow the Afghan banks to survive would allow liquidity to flow into Afghanistan and would allow the Afghan economy to take to have benefits of the actually increased trade that we have seen since August. I think that's worth noting that again of course because of the improved security situation, the fact that movements are easier we have seen an increase in trade across the borders with neighboring countries. And it's really important that that can be further supported to restart the Afghan economy. I have a question here from Damian power from the defense forces. Is there a sense that the Taliban are using the current war in Ukraine as a cover to implement a more hard line approach within Afghanistan. I think that the western world is very much engaged in that particular crisis, and then Peter McLoone, who is a board member of the IEA asks, does matter know what percentage of Afghans income is now dependent on international development date. And does this dependence provide any leverage in securing change. Thank you. I don't think that we have made a direct link between the Ukrainian war and the approach that the Taliban leaders are taking at the moment I think it's much more to do with some internal dynamics also related to the the power structure within the Taliban and and the needs for some parts of the Taliban to to demonstrate more clear results also to their internal followers. I think the war in Ukraine is has more been of a concern to us relating to the willingness to continue for for the international community to stay engaged in Afghanistan and to continue to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance. And as I said at the beginning so far, we have been encouraged by many statements also in the Security Council from member states clearly stressing that yes Ukraine takes up a lot of bandwidth but the countries are committed to assisting Afghanistan to keep the focus on Afghanistan. And I think what we would be concerned with in the midterm is of course the general effects that we know that the one Ukraine also have on international food prices for example, which might of course also impact the situation here in Afghanistan where a lot of the wheat and other commodities are imported. What percentage of the population is dependent on development aid. That's actually zero, because at the moment there is no development aid coming into Afghanistan, but if the question was more related to humanitarian assistance, I would say that at the moment it's about half the population that will depend on humanitarian assistance to cover just their most basic needs. So there's definitely a strong dependence on humanitarian assistance and, and our message is if that is not to continue year after year, then there is a need for the, for the donors for the international community to find ways of also supporting international development objectives, even if it must at the outset be through channels that bypass the government structures. At the recent pledging conference, there were donors pledging also support for what we call basic human needs. They're somehow beyond the core humanitarian activities and where we hope we can support more the preservation of the education system, the health system, water provisions and so on. But, but at the moment it's it's very, very limited. That's for sure. Thank you. Thank you. A few more questions here. One is from Alan Dukes, the former Minister for Finance in Ireland. And he asks about the role of other Islamic States in seeking to moderate excessively restrictive approaches to human rights and to the rights of women and girls. I think you touched on that slightly earlier when you spoke about the organization of Islamic States but if you could give us a bit more of a feel for for the pressure they might be bringing to bear. And a question then from Francis Jacobs, a member of the Institute and a former head of the European Parliament representation in Ireland. And he asks about the attitude of non non Pashtuns to the de facto authorities. Are there any efforts to reach out to them and what is happening in places that used to be controlled by the Northern Alliance. Can I just add on a slight pedestal to that last question. Are there areas about which you have very different information but which you have a lot of concerns in regard to the humanitarian situation. Thank you. The role of other Islamic States. I think this, this can become very important and we have from the enormous side, really tried to encourage also the engagement of other Muslim majority or Islamic countries in Afghanistan we are really pleased with the engagement of the organization of Islamic which also has a representation here in in Kabul with an ambassador present and one of the initiatives they are looking at is to bring in a large group of Islamic scholars after Ramadan to have a dialogue with the de facto authorities on a number of these issues relating to to education to women's rights and so on. We see also countries such as Turkey Qatar being very active also issuing statements around the education decision. And in general being being very active in dialogue with the, with the authorities we meet regularly with those countries that still have representation here in in Kabul, which of course, most of the, if not all of the neighboring countries, Iran Pakistan, the Central Asian countries we met with them just this morning and and and we find it very very important and useful the way they try also to support the objectives that we have in our engagement with the, with the Taliban authorities I think it's quite impressive. Actually, the unity that have been demonstrated across all parts of the international community of course there are different approaches, and some are more interested in engaging more directly with with the authorities but in general I think the messages that come from these countries and these different organizations correspond very much with also what is coming for example from the Security Council. As I mentioned, regarding the the passion, the, the, the, the current authorities governments and so on structure to a very, very high extent dominated by a passion, and that of course, causes a lot of concern amongst other ethnic countries that do feel alienated and removed from any influence on the government. And, and we also see that in some areas of Afghanistan where there are also non pastime Taliban. There are increasing the tensions between pastime and non pastime Taliban, especially especially in the north. And it's, it's, it's a clear message from us to to the de facto authorities that longer term stability and development in Afghanistan will depend on providing possibilities for other ethnic groups to influence government to feel represented. At the moment unfortunately we do not see any attempt from the Taliban side from the de facto authorities to engage in such an outreach to other other ethnic groups. And, and it's, it's, it has not yet been having much traction. The call has also come from former president car side for example, and, and has largely been been been ignored, probably also reflecting the fact that that internally in the Taliban they are still also balancing their own sort of division of power between different. groups. On the humanitarian situation. Of course I'm not directly responsible for that. So I don't have all the details but I would say that in general we have access now to almost all districts in the country, a country to what has been the case for decades with the improved community. The UN and its partners international NGOs, national NGOs, we to together we do actually access, almost all districts in the country. So I think the, the, the overview and and the knowledge on on the humanitarian situation is by now quite good. And of course also. It's clear that some of these areas that have been very difficult to reach before are in a very dire situation. They were already in a difficult situation before August, we have the prolonged droughts here slightly more rain this winter but still not enough to to cover all the needs in the agricultural sector. Of course, the fact that the services have not been reaching these parts of the country for a long time. The situation is really difficult but but the good thing is that we do now have access in a way that we did not have before. Thank you for that meant to two more questions and we're probably coming towards the end of the question so if anyone has anything outstanding please get it to us and shortly. This one is from Sarah Bracken. Is there, and perhaps you could talk about the requirement to have a mara and present with a woman when she is seeking medical assistance. And is that being strictly enforced, and is that a new step, or was that already the case in their previous iteration. And there's a question from Kevin Colligan from the Department of Foreign Affairs. To what extent are the Taliban aware of the difficulties and in the delivery of humanitarian assistance posed by the new restrictions on women's freedom of movement. On the mara issue. I would say our impression is on this issues as on many other issues the implementation of the different the directives are quite on evil on equal across the country. As we see very strict strict implementation of some of these demands, both on on, I mean, a dress code for women, whether women can move without the mara whether they can access medical assistance but in other parts of the country. There are not such a big issues. It's not so so so difficult and I mean I visited a number of provinces lately and I mean for example in in Bami and you still see quite a lot of women moving in the streets without being sort of to cover it up. There is a part of the market with shops run by women selling handicraft that's still open in Kabul I would say the image in the streets is slowly changing I mean they're not many women but they are still women but they are increasingly very conservatively dressed. And I think the, the fact that the population do not really know when and how these directives will be implemented. It creates a lot of fear and uncertainty and many choose to sort of maybe over comply because they don't know what, what response they would be met with. So, so, so again, I mean it differs across the country but but I think the trend that the moment is to watch more and more restrictions and more and more difficulties for the women. I mentioned before that I had visited Kabul University some weeks ago which was a very positive experience, lots of female students around I had a dialogue both with female and male students and also with female faculty male faculty. The female students dressed sort of still quite lively. When I passed the university just two days ago all the female students that were lined up outside to get into the university were dressed in black from top to toe and definitely not allowed anymore to get into the university unless they, they abide by this stress code. I mean, just the sign that that at the moment the thing things are not going in the right direction they are going towards more restrictions more rules being imposed on, especially on the women but also on the men as I mentioned the rules around the growing beards and also press code if you want to enter ministries or public offices. Sorry, I think I think you know it's on the last question. It was something about the humanitarian assistance. Yes, there was a question to what extent are the de facto authorities aware that their, their new restrictions on women's freedom of movement are impacting on the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Well, it's it's definitely something that is discussed with them but to what extent they accept this is another issue. I mean, again, lately from some of the meetings I've had with the provincial governors. I often get the argument that within their interpretation of Islam and Sharia it's very important to protect women and women are best protected if they stay in their homes and it's the duty of the men to take care of them. And that is the logic they are coming from so so. So I'm not sure that it always makes an impression on them that you try and discuss the need to have women having easy access to humanitarian assistance and also the need to have women. They're part of the delivery of not only humanitarian assistance but but also another area we we raise with them is women's access to justice, especially also for women that are victims of gender based violence that they they need to be able to to act with the with the female officials police men, female staff in the legal sector and so on. And, and they do respond to some extent I mean there are in most places there are women back in the police force for example, but in other areas it's it's not easy to to to get them to accept that this is this is necessary. Here's a question here from Arif Sahil. He says that unanimous new mandate gives stronger focus on facilitating dialogue amongst political stakeholders for inclusive governance. There is broad recognition on the need to reach a comprehensive agreement between Taliban and other political groups. What measures might you be contemplating in that regard. That could lead to national agreement as was called for security council resolution 2513 and then in Emily been she asks, do you have any remarks regarding the role of Qatar in the in efforts in sorry in international efforts and dialogue with the Taliban I think you mentioned them in the context of Islamic States and could I add in another question there and how should we interpret the Taliban decision to crack down on poppy production is that response to international pressure or is that an effort to find to find international recognition. And the, the, the part of our new mandate that talks about our role in trying to promote broad based dialogue on inclusive governance on representativity on on on all groups in society being able to to take part in in in in governance is a is a really important part of the mandate and one that we had really hoped that we would get strong strong backing from the Security Council for because that is, I mean we see that as the key issue for long term stability and also creating the possibility of sustainable development in Afghanistan if we can achieve that kind of discussion where we're broader parts of the population are included. And so so the idea from our side is definitely to to to work on these issues both at the national level but definitely also through our field offices at at the provincial level where where we sometimes see more possibilities of of furthering this dialogue I think there is a strong need here for also a bottom up approach to dialogues around inclusion but also conflict management reconciliation and so on. And the problem of course at the moment is that with the decisions on on education and some of these restrictive measures we have seen lately. And that calls into question, whether our strategy of of of or our hypothesis that we could make progress on on promoting such types of dialogue, whether that is actually possible. And as I said the jury is still out, we will continue to try and create for us where this is possible we will continue to impress upon the the the Taliban authorities that it's also in their interest to open up to wider parts of society, but whether we will succeed I think is something that that we will still have to wait some time to to see. And again, as I said, I think the strengths is very much in the demands also from the Afghan population. And that do really want to be heard and to have their interests reflected also in in what the government decides. So so again it's also very much about engaging with Afghan society and trying to support these organizations networks whatever that still exists in in the country. And as I said, I think the region, and also other Muslim countries can play an important role here and definitely Qatar is one of the countries that have played an active and positive role. We've also been really happy with the UAE, who has a strong voice also in the Security Council, and who helps a lot around the adoption of our mandate. That country is also participating quite actively in the dialogue we have with the region here in country. The ban on puppy production and the dog drug trade. I think it took us all a bit by surprise that decision. In a way, of course, it's welcome. It's what the international community and also the neighbors have asked for for years that there should be a more efficient attempt to control this sector in Afghanistan. What we are saying is that we would be very interested in seeing also plans for how this decision is to be implemented. At the outset we, there are some concerns that if if a ban on, for example, the ongoing harvest were to come into play right away. It would completely destroy the livelihood for for large parts of, especially farmers in the southern part of the country would not be able in the short in the short term to replace the puppies with other crops. So for this not to lead to further economic hardship further disaster for an already very vulnerable part of the population, it would need to be a decision that would have to be implemented gradually and accompanied by measures that can address the economic needs of these parts of the population. And then there are of course a whole lot of other challenges involved in controlling the trade, the smuggling the export and so on. We are still studying this decision and just hope to have further discussions with the Taliban authorities on what their plans are. What led to the discussion coming right now. I think it becomes a bit a question of speculation. I mean, it might, it might be linked to to diverting attention away from the education side but it might also be something that has been brewing within the Taliban for a while. And now they just found that this was the right time to to to come forward with the decision. So I don't think we can say exactly what what led to this. Well, thank you very, very much that I'm hugely impressed by the work that Yunama is doing in Kabul. I'm hugely impressed by the fact that you are living in Kabul that we are able to benefit from your expertise today. Thank you so much, and I wish you all the best and Yunama all the best with its mandate. Thank you very much and it was really a pleasure to participate and be part of this discussion also and please I mean if anybody wants to continue with some questions we are we always available here in Kabul. Thank you very much.