 Good morning, good afternoon and a good evening depending on where you're joining us, very welcome to this webinar on Afghanistan. Together, we are joining 40 other events as part of the Global Democratic Coalition. This will be part of an initiative of democracy-oriented organizations to be able to put inputs into the Summit for Democracy led by President Joe Biden. Together with 200 other speakers, you will have a wonderful panel, we hope, to be able to discuss the topic of Afghanistan even further. There are many people who are wondering what should be done about contexts that are complex, such as Afghanistan and so on. So in order to understand this a little bit deeper, we will first have a speaker, our Honorable Excellency Ambassador, Yosef Hard of Sy, who came to Norway in 2019. In his 15 years diplomatic career, he has been working on multilateralism, peace and stabilization, and presented Afghanistan in various multiple forums, including the UN Security Council. Now, before giving him the word and be able to go and introduction into what is currently happening in the situation, I would also like to introduce you to our moderator, Liv Shelcet, who is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee. Liv has previously worked with the Norwegian Directorate for Immigration, as well as the Norwegian Council for the Rise of the Kurdish People. Now, on behalf of the Oslo Center, I would like to wish you very, very welcome. And please note that you will be able to participate and ask questions at the very end, both to our panelists and to our speaker. Thank you. Once again, an ambassador, please join us. We're organizing this seminar on the occasion of this week's global democracy summit. I'm especially thankful to our friends at the Center for dedicating this session to the democratization of Afghanistan, and the way in which this involvement she has now been entirely undermined in light of the Taliban's forced military takeover of the country. So much is often said about democracy's ability to allow people to live decent lives, to have the freedom to criticize, to express their views, and to meet their aspirations. But among these elements, democracy is also a factor for stability, enabling the social and economic well being of peoples in societies. Given the situation that has come about with the Taliban's takeover in Afghanistan, this is something which millions of Afghans from all walks of life can clearly relate to. From a historical perspective, democratic values have not been a new phenomenon in Afghanistan. They have roots in a long and rich history in which generations of Afghans have served to advance this principle as a way of life. The start of international engagement and partnership in 2001 enabled the people to restore a democratic environment in the country. Looking back in this period of time, Afghanistan's democratization can be seen as one of the most important, if not the single most important achievement over the past 20 years. Development of what was the most vibrant and open media in our immediate region, the building of democratic institutions, the emergence of a vibrant civil society, and come of age of a new generation of Afghans who courageously took the step forward to build their country. These are all very real examples of what was achieved. And at times, we tend to forget that these gains were made amidst the very difficult security environment. This indicates something beyond just ability and courage alone. It also reflects the people's deep desire and choice to live in a democratic society. In any doubt, developments in the country have not always reflected the position of the people, their choices and their decision. The past few elections were not void of problems and certainly had their flaws and a better degree of political stability and national cohesion could have and should have been preserved for the stability of Afghanistan. But despite all the problems, which were indeed many, Afghanistan remained a democratic society, and people took pride in being able to benefit from the freedom and opportunities that came with this universal value. Obviously, a lot has now changed, and the country stands in a much different situation. The Taliban's forced military takeover in violation of international law and the expectations of the people and the international community have taken the country back to a point which the people never expected. The situation now is extremely dire from a political, humanitarian, social, economic, and also security standpoint. The humanitarian catastrophe is such that more than half the population is deprived of the most basic of services needed for mere survival. From a social and political standpoint, democracy and all the rights that come with it were taken away almost overnight. Millions of women and girls deprived of their God given right to education to work and to participate in civic activities. The pages of media outlets have been closed, and journalists and activists are subject to threats and intimidation. Now the factors for what happened on the 15th of August are many. However, failure to reach a political agreement under the doha talks, which became virtually impossible after the withdrawal of international forces was the main factor. The withdrawal of international forces occurred after an agreement to which all sides committed the situation would have been much different. An agreement based on a national consensus would have led to a legal and official transfer of power to a broad based government that would have had the ability and legitimacy to direct Afghanistan on the path of peace and stability. Despite all the anguish and dismay, the focus now should be on what must be done to redirect the country back on the path of stability. Completing the peace process that began in Doha for a comprehensive settlement, which includes all core issues, formation of an inclusive government, the form of the future administration, respect for the democratic right of all citizens and measures to prevent Afghanistan from again turning into a base of international terrorism needs to be reached. We must not forget that a political settlement was one of the main provisions of the doha agreement, and that it was reaffirmed by several Troika plus meetings, the heart of Asia meeting on Afghanistan, the UN Security Council Resolution 2513 and recent foreign ministerial meetings of regional countries. The Taliban should come to realize that imposed rule is neither acceptable nor sustainable, and that legitimacy and acceptability can only come with a broad based agreement with various political groups and segments of society that reflects the will of the people. The international community has an important role and responsibility to help reach this agreement. It remains the only answer to the unresolved conflict in Afghanistan. I'd like to conclude by referring to a quote by former US Secretary of State, John Kerry, a few years back on the International Day of Democracy and I quote, The democratic societies are strong societies because people are free to speak out against injustices and to discuss debate and to work together to drive positive change, even with those who hold opposing views. At this very crucial point in time, this lies at the heart of what we're seeking to achieve in relation to a political agreement in the interim that paves the way for lasting peace in a democratic Afghanistan. And we must not forget that Afghanistan's long term stability can only be guaranteed through free and fair elections and the direct choice of the people. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ambassador Gafasai. I'm Liqielset, representing the Norwegian Afghanistan Committee. And for those of you that don't know the committee, we have been working in Afghanistan since the last 40 years during all the various epaulks and regimes. And I'm grateful to have the chance to share some of our viewpoints on the current situation now. So before I introduce our prominent panel today, I will share a few, few points. So surely the Taliban take over represent a threat to democracy, the free media, civil society in Afghanistan. This threat is due to the Taliban resistance to the bureaucratic values, its horrific human rights record, and its lack of capacity to manage modern Afghan state institutions and provide quality public services to all. Because despite the war and conflict and the uncoordinated international intervention, public institutions at national, provincial and district level have matured over the last 20 years. And despite of all mismanagement, nepotism, corruption and dysfunctionality of the previous regime, the capability of the state to collect taxes and revenues are improved. The service delivery functions of the public sector have also greatly improved, and we now have a public education system and a national health coverage in place. These investments are made by Afghans and the international community together. They are now at risk due to the US World Bank and UN sanctions to Afghanistan in response to the Taliban take over the 15th of August. The freezing of the multi donor trust fund, as well as the assets of the Afghan Central Bank are leading to the collapse of the Afghan state. And have already had severe consequences for the people of Afghanistan. Without swift pragmatic actions from the international community, more people will die in 2022 alone than from violence during the 20 past 20 years of conflict. The international community entered Afghanistan in 2001 without a plan. They operated for 20 years in the country without the plan. There were no plan for the exit, and there is currently no plan for further engagement in the country. In this seminar, we will discuss the impacts of the democratization efforts in Afghanistan and whether the manner of withdrawal has impacted the democratic course of the country. So now I'm delighted to introduce the panelists of this seminar. I will briefly introduce all three of them. We are short of time, and then we will have a five minute where the panelists can share their views. So I will start with Nargis Neham. She has served as a senior advisor to several ministers as well as the president. She has herself been active minister of minds and petroleum for almost three years. Mr. Mrs. Neham has also funded equality for peace and democracy as civil society organization for empowering women and youth. Here by my side, I have Kai Ida. He was the UN Secretary General Special Representative in Afghanistan during 2008 2010. He has served in numerous positions as a Norwegian diplomat in Norway and also in the UN. And he has followed development in Afghanistan closely since 2002. Last but not least James Vassestran. He has served as a senior advisor on anti-corruption at the US Embassy in Kabul from 2009 to 2014. And he later led the team that drafted the official US government report on the US role in corruption in Afghanistan. He is considered an expert and seminar, both in the US and Afghan anti-corruption efforts in Afghanistan. So please Nargis, you have five minutes to share your viewpoints. Thank you very much. First of all, I have to thank the Oslo Center for hosting today's event and bringing together such an incredible number of speakers. And I also hope that today's discussion will highlight some of the different dimensions of democratization that we have in Afghanistan. We all know that democracy is about freedom, liberty, inclusivity and stability. While democracy requires inclusivity, it's also an open and flexible with different models allowing nations to adopt the one that is suitable for them. As someone that have worked in Afghanistan for the last 20 years, nonstop and both public and as well as civil society sector. So I would like to share some of the points of democratization in Afghanistan and also highlight the point of the role of three main players in democratization process in Afghanistan. I will start with international community. And especially the US did support democratization in Afghanistan. They invested billions of dollars trying to build institutions, legal framework and provide public support through the civil society and media for raising awareness and having dialogues and discussions about democratization. In the meantime, the challenges that we faced with international community was that they tried to impose on Afghan people a model of democracy that they had in mind. And that was very un-democratic and was not welcome and was not accepted by Afghan people and we saw a consequence of that, that suddenly and gradually, unfortunately, things began to fall apart. If we look at the Bonn process conference as example, people that you were invited were mostly the warlords and some Afghans from diaspora. But those people that they had left in Afghanistan and they were living a normal life and they had a different aspiration from Afghanistan. Those people, the young, the woman, they were invited but they were invited to a side meeting. They were not part of the main discussions and the negotiations when they were happening. This became unfortunately the trend in the last 20 years that all the important conferences and events that we had about Afghanistan, including the peace process, the civil society, women groups and media were always isolated. We were provided with a side event to discuss and our issues amongst ourselves and then we were provided with just few minutes to present our recommendations to the policymakers, which most of them unfortunately were being ignored. The international community also chose to work with two sets of people that they were very much disconnected from the reactive of Afghanistan. One was the group of warlords that they got into politics, but they never knew anything about politics about nation building or state building. The other group was group of diaspora that they knew something about the state building and nation building, but they were so isolated that they had no idea what was going on in Afghanistan and how they could help Afghanistan to move forward and build itself. The other problem that we had was the political structure that they came with a very highly centralized political structure that they adopted from the model of the US, but then in the US you have a system of federalism, and you also have a very powerful Congress that they are part of the major decisions when it comes to the nation. In the case of Afghanistan, we had the highly corrupted and ineffective parliament, the system was highly centralized, with no role for the political parties, with no role for the provinces to play, and everything was decided by a small group of circles within the palace and no consultation and engagement of other players. Now the election commissions that you know that in a country like Afghanistan, which was in war for more than four decades, you need to have very credible institutions that when they conduct the election and when they come up with the result, that will be acceptable by all the participants. But in the case of Afghanistan, because of the corruption and because of the lack of system and that we had in the vote election and complaint commission, all our elections unfortunately were disputed. And all the time we had to end of the day about political settlement, which most of the time the decision that were made were not resonating to what people a majority of the people actually voted. So that all these together an inclusion of closing their eyes with regard to trafficking corruption at the higher level, brought us to the point that actually state got to the level that they collapsed. So this was this the role that international community played, and actually that presented a very different picture of democracy to upon people that they thought the democracy is basically that they will come to the model and you hide either you have to accept it, you don't have any other choice in between to be able to adopt it. That would reflect the reality of your society would you go to have on governments and our leaders. Unfortunately, we don't we our leaders and our politicians, most of them were warlords that they were in war, all the time it was about fight and violence, then they got into politics, and then we had the group of diaspora that all the time they focus about political capture and power sharing for them the governance and democratization was never about delivery of the services to the people it was mainly about capture of resources and capture capture of power for themselves. And also the according to the laws that we had in the country had played no give no particular rule for the political parties to emerge. So what happened that for all our political debates, whether we were talking about election or we were talking about peace process or anything. The platform that people were debating and talking was the ethnicity platform and unfortunately that provided that created more division amongst the people, because people being mobilized based on their ethnicity rather than on a vision of state coming together and working together as a society. There was no public accountability and fortunately, and about the corruption and criticism and an impunity already talked about. So the last very few point that I want to mention is the silver line the load of people civil society and media that as mentioned very well that people have people have been engaged, they had desired for democracy. They have been helping by cost of their lives they have voted, but unfortunately they were being let down by upon politicians and by the international community. And right now the country is going to national star vision, denial of women's basic rights target killings and isolation of Afghanistan. Thank you. But I think I will end discussions I can come back to them. Thank you. Thank you for the many interesting points, and I guess and we will pick more up on it during the discussions. So but now, Kai, I'd like to please share your viewpoints with us. Thank you very much. One of the last few days and I must say also in the last few months and last few years perhaps about our entire democracy building effort in Afghanistan. And I think it's important to remember that only three months after the 911 event, a conference took place that established the foundations for a democratic state a modern democratic state. And then it was to be implemented immediately in all these components. I think we have to remember one thing that Afghanistan was at the time, a rather primitive country or backward country, not least when it comes to literacy for instance. And the political system that was diametrically different different from what we tried to establish. And also the people who decided on this on the Afghan side, what were the leadership the elites with a good amount of war warlords among them. So my question is, was it realistic to move for such a comprehensive effort at the time. Was it possible to make it function well in a 20 years period. My conclusion is probably, no, it was not. I think we made very, very big strides towards the goals that we wanted to establish and that many in Afghanistan wanted. It is very hard when you have, when you have two political systems, almost coins coexisting the old traditional system that was there that was deeply rooted in the Afghan society and then a completely new system that you wanted to establish under very different difficult circumstances. Was there another way to proceed more step by step approach. It's very hard to say, but what we embarked on in 2001 2002 was we can say an extremely challenging demanding effort that had probably not been undertaken anywhere in the world before then. I think we need to have that perspective in mind. And we have lived throughout this period, in fact, more or less with two existing political systems. The one in Kabul institutions in provinces, and then also on the countryside with a different system. If we look at Europe and how we developed into the modern democracies we are, it took not only decades, it took much more than that. We are now 108 years from having established the right of women to vote, for instance. I think we have to learn from this and also understand that to develop democracy in a situation of war is also almost impossible. Those who come to liberate those who come to help become very easily seen as the occupier. And that is also what happened in Afghanistan. I think. And finally, the corruption, the nepotism, nepotism was part of the traditional system, also has damaged tremendously our possibilities of establishing democracy. So now we have to look at how do we go from here. And I'm sure the discussion that will follow will focus to a large extent on that. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Kai. James was a strong. Would you like to share your points you are with us. I'm definitely with you. And thank you for for introducing me. My perspective, I think that all the speakers have made very good points. But I'd like to because of the work that we did looking at the US rule and corruption dating back to the very earliest days. I'd like to sort of start with the, with the kind of a dichotomy that the US was facing with its Afghan partners. First, the intelligence agencies of the US when they arrived there, they, they funded the warlords, as it were to remove the Taliban. But they also then excluded the Taliban from participation in the political process. Second, when that political process came together in Bonn and afterward, they paid the warlords to actually participate in that process. So there was already a transition that was taking place with the warlords and other power brokers, seeing that the government may actually be just maybe a vehicle for self enrichment. And then with the exclusion of the Taliban from the political process and their, their detention in Bahram and Guantanamo and so on, which gave rise to the subsequent insurgency. And again, the intelligence community, which you can primarily US, except I had a justification for continuing to finance these, these bad actors or these or, or the warlords. So I'm not really sure, even with the best of intentions, how likely it was under these circumstances that democratization with governments was ever going to succeed. There was a military intervention that came from the US side and from ISAF, which exacerbated the problems of corruption. And there are many, many examples of that and we documented them in the report, and have been documented by the media subsequently. And so, and then you had the civilian side on the, on the US and the other donors who are working diligently to create some of these institutions, working with the Afghans, those who are serious about this and there were many, there were, and a generation or more of individuals who were very hard on this, but we were on the civilian side in particular we were kind of swimming against the tide, because the different parts of the war effort on the US side, we're working across purposes. And I think that that that seriously undermined the ability of good governance to take root in Afghanistan over these many years. And, and I think it played out, as we saw in the ultimate collapse of the of the Afghan state for a number of reasons, but corruption and the lack of a plan. I think that's that actually says it beautifully, but there was never at any point during the 20 years, was there really any plan from the international community as to how to achieve democratization and good governance. So of course, what was the exit to be the exit was going to be also without a plan. And, and it was, I think the title of this includes irresponsible, sorry responsible exiting. Of course, what we did see was irresponsible exiting. We saw basically an abandonment of the of the Afghan government and the Afghan people in particular by by the international community, and which has led to this horrific set of circumstances that our moderator and others have pointed to, and there still is no plan except some bizarre form of punishment. And who's being punished here, which is really the Afghan people. So I, whether or not the, the, the story is by no means over. I think we've mentioned that what what will actually happen as a result of that of the Taliban take over. Is it likely to last. I think that many observers think that it's not likely to last what will come in its place. It will probably not be a return to the form of government, and as it was in the, in the preceding 20 years. So I think we had this, this bad start to this effort that was enormous that, although it did have, it did produce some very positive things, health education, women's, women's girls educate women's education and so on. And some good infrastructure. It was, it was almost certainly doomed to fail from the outset, and the fact that there was never any plan, and there still seems to be no plan has laid bare the lack of foresight and the lack of commitment to good governance democratization and responsible editing exiting. Thank you so much, James. I would like to start to pick up on something that Nargis Neham made a very strong point of in her introduction about the lack of inclusion of Afghans in the development of the various kind of what became the sort of democratic system of Afghanistan. And I'm wondering if you could particularly James and Kai, if you could respond to Nargis about this. Why were Afghans to this little extent consulted and involved in the development of their own government systems. You can ask that question and it's a good question to ask. And looking back, I think we were so focused on developing our own system, copying our own system. We remember this was at a time also from the 90s, where we believe that all countries would seek to develop a democracy liberal democracy close to the one we had shaped in the western world. It was a brief period but that was really the atmosphere at the time. And probably what we did also in Afghanistan we wanted to constitution we wanted to set out of institutions etc. We wanted to set out of rights that should be established quickly. And of course, in many ways, it was right to go that way but we have to understand also that the society like Afghanistan. You need much more time to get where you want to go and some have said we did it in Germany so why can't we do it in Afghanistan. I think when we did it in the former Soviet republics. Well, they also, many of them had democratic experience. The only place where we have seen it really happen is Tunisia, where, where the ownership came from below and not was not trying to force it on from the top. I think the international community took on too much, sent in too many experts so called, we knew very little of the Afghan society or its tradition of its politics etc. If you don't have that knowledge, if you don't know how the system has worked, how the society has worked, what it is like, then you're bound to fail. I remember Michael Flynn who was the head of the intelligence at ISAF for a while, wrote a paper in 2010, eight years after where he wrote, we don't know the people and we don't know who the enemy is. That was after eight years. Yeah, and I think that is a very, very important point. I myself I've been working on Afghanistan now for at least 12 years and following the media on Afghanistan before that and everyone speaks about the mistakes done in Bonn and also in the earlier days. So, so James. Let me answer the question that you've posed. There's, I can't think of an example of a political settlement where, where there was wide consultation. It just doesn't happen. These things are done behind the scenes behind closed doors in smoke filled rooms as far as I can tell where where expedience is really the way things are done by diplomats and politicians they don't know they don't, they don't, they don't care about the interests of the populations they're in, in the main. There are some exceptions. So there's no, there's almost no example of this kind of consultation that takes place in terms of political settlements. And that's, that's, that's a shame. And of course, it can and should be done differently. But these are, these are, this is the real politic unfortunately that that existed in Afghanistan and has existed in almost all places where these political settlements have been imposed at the same time. We, we decided to impose this central model on a country which is, which is by nature, decentralized. So why the fact that we chose to do a, to do a, this highly centralized system, where we clearly would have would have benefited the government and people more obviously to have a decentralized system was really only given scant attention by the powers that be to change a bit of the of the topics and to go to the corruption and epitism issue. And Nargis, you've been working yourself within the government and as a civil society activist. How did you see and also you entered the government at a very kind of optimistic period of time around election in 2014. How was it to enter the system and what, what did you see in terms of the challenges related to corruption and nepotism. To tell you my personal experience that all of us were very much frustrated with President Karzai, not taking any stand and basically encouraging people for corruption. So when former President Ghani took office in 2014, many of the educated men and women decided to join and support him in state building because we thought that he is the right man and building the country and state for us. So we went to the system and we all of us tried to help them out in different capacities that we put, and I'm sure that in many of the quarters come that a big number of women and made from the civil society were appointed in different positions as advisors, the ministers, directors and cabinet members. But then slowly and gradually what we saw that the promises that were made during the election were much more different in the reality that was happening. And things began to get worse and worse and worse every time we saw that okay there is no particular will for fighting corruption. And then what we also saw worse than Karzai's time was that parallel institutions were established and systems were in the, in the palace that they were, they were copying and they were doing work of the ministries, the ministries had no authority and they had no power to execute the policies and to be able to deliver services that they required to do. So then slowly and gradually many of us came to this conclusion that things are going to fall apart, but we didn't know that they will fall apart so badly, and so quickly. So it was 2019 the fight finally, many of us, after the second round of election before actually the announcement of second round election, we decided to quit government, because our conclusion was that we cannot work and we cannot survive in this highly corrupted environment that we had in system. And it was mainly because we had many of the ones coming from diaspora with no connection with our own people with no sense of accountability to have one community. And all of them were living in the palace or in the green zone was it about home. And they were making all these deals, they were not respecting our constant laws and regulations. They were just going out of their way and using their connection with the President for for procurements contracts. That's so many times civil society media with all the evidence kept on reporting about them by taking all the risk, but they saw no reaction from the government and they saw nothing from coming from the international community. So it became very frustrating for all of us because we were fighting in the system corruption and Buddhism, we were fighting from the civil society and from the media, but there was no accountability from the government and there was literally no support from the international community. The knowledge James are you with us. I don't think it's never been a lack of knowledge and understanding about about the topic it's been kind of what Margueris pointed to a lack of willingness to do anything. Yes, I think that's that it's maybe not a lack of willingness to do anything I mean, I would be careful in in lumping, you know, conflict conflictive forces in the same category. There was, in my experience, as I mentioned on the on the civilian side meaning the diplomacy and in the various aid organizations including your own as there was lots of will to try to assist in fighting corruption. And where it was lacking and undermined was on the intelligence and military side, and they were very open about this. When, when they were asked, despite the fact that HR McMaster had established us for Shaffa Fiat and so on at ISAP and so on that was really much more of a, it was not a very effective effort, although well intentioned, I think, on his part, at least not so much on General Petraeus's part. But, but they're there, they saw their job as as getting results and we define results was was quote unquote winning the war. So, if that meant that that there was a certain amount of corruption, which they actually said in behind closed doors and actually in an international community, transparent and accountable to work working group that I chaired some years ago, they said well that's that's what it takes. That's what it takes. They said, we know that's not what you want to hear but that's, that's how, how we view it. So there were cross purposes between those who who wanted fight corruption international community, and those who really didn't didn't care to do so. And so there was a head of the corruption through the clientelism and Patrick networks of the of the warlords and their associates, particularly in the military side, the Afghan National Army, among others. And so, there was, there wasn't a lack of knowledge it was, it was a lack of conflict of wills between two different perspectives within the international community. James and I think that we should pick up also on kind of encouragement that we should discuss where to move from, from here. And before we do that, I will also ask about the exit that we now have seen, and what kind of implications do the exit that we have. The exit of the international community have as regards to democratization and resilience and sustainability. Anyone would like to start. Would you permit me to sentences on this. Of course, nepotism and corruption came together when nepotism was filled by billions and billions of dollars. But nepotism as such, and put the corruption side fingers side for a moment nepotism as such is means. The rest of your family, you know, if you are a head of a family or a tribe, you try to see to it that the rest of the family or the tribe are in good positions that they are favored by you as a head of a tribe that that that that is not in itself. Very surprising and something that is seen in in very many societies has been part of the Afghan society, and then the money comes in and is added to it. And you see a level of corruption developing that obviously is unacceptable and meant that people says people could see that this new system doesn't seem to work in our favor. It works in the favor of a few rich people. So I think that destroyed it all but you wanted to talk about the future. I want to talk first about the exit from Afghanistan. What kind of state now, what, how, how the way that we exited or the international community now left Afghanistan have influenced and what state the democracy democracy. Now find itself in. It is left in a total shambles. You cannot say that the political system that we've had over the last 20 years is there anymore it's, it has been replaced by something very, very different. This reminds us of the 1990s and the Taliban rule. Is it actually exactly similar or is it not the world that we will see when, when the time passes by. Is there any possibility to revive democracy. I think we have to continue pressing the Taliban for concessions when it comes to some very basic issues, which has to do with the women's right freedom of expression, etc. But I must also say, what is today the biggest threat against stability. Is it the Taliban or is it the humanitarian situation. I will claim that it's a humanitarian situation. And here we are in one of the big dilemmas when it comes to human rights. Do we want to punish the Taliban for not for limiting women's rights and freedom of expression. Or do we want to punish the people. What we're doing now is in fact both, you know, we're saying to the Taliban, we don't want to talk to you. And the end result is by not talking by not engaging. I do not say recognition, but by not talking not engaging. It's the people that we put in in danger and that I must say will be a grave threat to the stability of the country. You can risk seeing new violence, fragmentation within the Taliban, which is already a fragmented movement. You can risk seeing a new war, new civil war between the IS and the Taliban, and also other forces in the country. So I must say, and this I know sounds very, very strange to many, but the best way of securing stability today is in fact to engage with the Taliban. And then we have to make sure what our objectives is at this, but it's only by doing that, that we can limit the number of people who suffer from malnutrition, from the drought, from lack of medicine, etc. And Nargis, I've heard you say so many times that you saw this coming. And you knew, of course, that the international community were exiting Afghanistan. What were your recommendations? How could this exit have become more responsible in your views? What is disappointing that we had so many consultation meetings with the international community. They had delegations coming to Afghanistan and asking exactly these questions and we continuously repeated ourselves about the issues and the way forward. But then at the end of the day they did what they did and let everything fall apart. For example, we didn't have to go for the presidential election in 2019. It was divisive and people were not reading and instead of that we should have focused on peace, but then they went for it and we saw the result of that. Then on top of that, we did tell them that we should be able to hold the government to account. Constantly, they were talking generally about fight and corruption but whenever we shared the case of corruption they didn't take any step at any action about it. So the responsible exit could have been to first of all convince Taliban for the political settlement and then working on the formation of a broad based caretaker or interim government before the exit. So it was very difficult for the Afghan government to be able to talk and resolve their issue before exiting. It might have taken another two or three years for countries that they had spent two decades in Afghanistan. Another two or three years wouldn't have made any difference, especially with the level of atrocity that we see right now. But at least it would have helped us to transition from the crisis that we had to a political settlement that would have led us to continue the situation. They just left everything fall apart. And this has hampered the democratization globally and image of the international community, especially in the U.S., with their very irresponsible withdrawal because on daily basis we are seeing war crimes, atrocities, target killings of specially formal national security forces. We just left them for brutal Taliban and everybody left. So still they have to constructively engage with the Taliban, but there is no way that should recognize the Taliban until the Taliban do not come forward and accept the reality of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is one of the, Taliban is one of our realities, but Taliban are not the only reality of Afghanistan. There are many realities, those women that they are standing at the cost of their life and they are uprising against the Taliban rule and they are saying that you want a work back. Those are also reality of Afghanistan that you should not ignore them. Those Yankee stars that they stand and they take the camera while the Taliban are beating them and trying to cover the news of the uprising, those are also realities of Afghanistan. So when we engage with the Taliban, it's very important that we make them realize that they are one of the realities, but they are not the whole reality. We need a form of government that will reflect the whole reality of Afghanistan, all the group and segments of Afghanistan, a government that focus on providing services to the people, and a government that will be accountable to the people. That is the only way forward, but how do we do that. It's a lot of work. It is very challenging. It's difficult, especially when we see a lot of confusion fragmentation on the international communities part. But we hope that together all of us will be able to find our way out of it. I personally believe that when there is a there is a one there is a way so if you have the one can find a way to do it. But the point is that we should be able to do it and definitely we should not you make the starvation of the people of Afghanistan, the misery of one people as excuse for lobbying for recognition of the Taliban, especially that they have no political will for any kind of compromise so far. Now that we have come to the part of this webinar where we will have some questions from the audience, and I will try to read those questions on the screen behind here. I will start asking how to reconcile or bring together the Islamic framework of the Taliban with the broader democratic process of the international community. And how to deal with what should have been the approach and the methodology. Would you like to start. I always been in favor of negotiations between Afghans. I've always thought that if there is a 10% 20% 30% chance, then you should do it. But I came to realize over time, and particularly after the agreement between the US and the Taliban that there was certain issues where you cannot find the compromise. And that had to do with the structural government, the Islamic State versus the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. And this happens sometimes in negotiations that you find issues that could not be bridged. And this happened here, at least it was clear that there was not enough time to pursue that. And I think to be quite honest, I think there were three parts here who did not really always demonstrate their readiness to negotiate seriously. So I think the very, very good job when it comes to the 29 February agreement we drew and implemented it also just as badly. The Taliban never showed any readiness to discuss these fundamental issues, and the government lacked the commitment also. Ashraf Ghani lacked the commitment. I'm a little bit surprised by Nargis because you said when Ashraf Ghani came in, it was with the great enthusiasm. I must say, I never saw him as a leader that would lead Afghanistan in the way it needed because he lacked the experience from the country itself. It was too much of an outsider. You mentioned President Karzai. Karzai always had one ear on the ground in Afghanistan and one ear within the international community. I think he managed better to bridge the two realities, so to speak. And that's what you have to do in order to move forward. Is it possible? I think it will take time. There are many, many questions here, but I think that we should also kind of take the perspective and bring it a bit forward. So if we could actually come up with some recommendations to the future and to the upcoming Biden summit. I would like to start with you Nargis. What are your recommendations moving forward now? The coordination between the, among the international community is very much important. Working closely with those states that they are supporting and they have influence over Taliban, such as Qatar and Pakistan, is very important that they work with the Taliban and they make Taliban to open up and accept the new Afghanistan. And all that empowering the appraisings and the civic movements inside Afghanistan and the those that they have moved outside of Afghanistan to raise the advice to constantly document and monitor the situation. And constantly update the international community on the situation is very much important. And all that we need to have right from now a roadmap that what kind of governance we want in Afghanistan and how do we work on formation of a caretaker government. And instead of waiting for the Taliban to come, it's better that we work on a model, and we use our backward diplomacy to actually work with the Taliban and make them realize and understand and accept that. It is going to be a win-win situation for us. If we manage to convince Taliban that they form an inclusive government, they accept the new Afghanistan, and we find a settlement out of this situation, because at least then that way we're not going to hopefully going to have any emergence of insurgency anymore except the ISIS and others. But if we don't have that, we should also have a solution, because with the way the situation is going on right now, there is no way that Taliban would be able to hold the country and the power together for another maybe one or two years. So we should be really right from now on how do we deal with the situation and how do we make sure that at least when we are intervening this time, it should be different than before. So do you have any kind of closing remarks and recommendations from your side? I'm sorry you're talking to me. Yes. If you have some recommendations. Yeah, well I do because we've been, I've been thinking about this I think Nargis is absolutely right and I was going to say make the same point about using those intermediaries will have some influence over the Taliban. I don't think the Taliban is there to stay, and I think Nargis has made the same point. I think that there's, they're incapable of governing. It's not going to happen there. They're going to try they don't have the depth they don't have the experience they don't have they don't have the, the, the, the commitment to be more than a movement, not really a government. I think that there, there, there, there can be scope for pressure. I'm not saying necessarily that it's democracy or democratization because I think that's, that's a big jump where we are now. There will be some sort of of intermediation with a view towards the life after the Taliban, and to try to resolve the situation of lack of governance in Afghanistan or at least to make it make it work in some way so that so that the people don't suffer more than they already are. And that can be through provision of humanitarian aid for the time being, but with a view towards towards bringing back the technocrats that were that ran the government effectively in some form or fashion. And then, and then using those countries which have influence whether it's Qatar, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. to intermediate some some, some different kind of governance than exists now, which is virtually none. So they're there that that I think can be done. Ambassador, I expect that you are burning in with some comments. I think there is a fundamental point that there's a tendency for us to forget. And that has to do with the fact that the peace process began in Boa. It was ongoing for more than a year and a half. We had two negotiating sites. The process was supported by the international community. Now I said, as I mentioned my introductory remarks, there are various reasons why the process really did not move forward on core issues and why it was abandoned. But one of which has to fundamentally do with the lack of the Taliban's unity within their ranks to be able to decide on core issues. And but the bigger question now is what has to happen? Yes, indeed, there is contact. There is engagement by the international community with the Taliban. But I think it's important for us to ask us, ask ourselves this question on what which of the four key demands of the international community in the Afghan people have the Taliban delivered. Inclusivity. No, respect for human rights. No, counterterrorism commitments commitments as the international community and the people of Afghanistan have expected. No. So, as opposed to approaching each specific demand individually, we believe it's really, really important to revisit the peace process, and to try to secure agreement on all core issues as part of a package. And should that happen, it will, first and foremost on the humanitarian situation, it will result in the normalization of relations between Afghanistan and the international community on a freezing of assets. A start of a new chapter of relations between the international community and a broad based administration that can really represent all segments of society. That I think is the best way forward from here on revisiting the process that was left incomplete. And with the serious support, strong support of the international community, I think it's still a process of a process that is achievable. I, you will have the last word. I wish I would feel that what you are saying is realistic. I don't think it is. What I think is important now is in order to get the democracy process going is a we engage with the Taliban to help the country out of a crisis. That means engaging more than someone's today. That's critical to the international community must not abandon Afghanistan politically and economically. Disaster three, we have to have a longer vision. There's one person I know well who wrote a book called the art of the long view. I think we have to take a long view in our engagement and our thinking and then gradually try to bring back the elements that were there and turn the last 20 years for very many into a golden age. But I think that art of the long view is unfortunately necessary today. Thank you for those I think that was the very good points made at the very end of this seminar and thank you to the audience. And one minute over and I think that would be impressive that everyone has kept the time so so well and thank you to the also Center for hosting this webinar. And thank you for all with the interest of Afghanistan and I will encourage everyone to continue to have the strong solidarity with the country. So thank you.