 Good morning. My name is Nancy Lindborg. I am the president of the U.S. Institute of Peace and I'm pleased to be able to welcome everybody this morning for a very special program. I'm glad the weather cooperated to let us continue with this morning. Welcome to everyone who braved the sort of pseudo-weather event to join us this morning. We're especially pleased to see the members of our International Advisory Council and welcome to those who are joining us by webcast. As many of you know, USIP was founded in 1984 by Congress, dedicated to the proposition that peace is a very practical undertaking, that it is absolutely essential for our global security and that it is eminently possible. And so USIP works with partners in conflict-defected countries around the world with governments, civil society leaders, women and youth to equip them with the kind of tools and learnings and information that enables them to work to prevent conflict from becoming violent and to resolve it when it does. As I think everyone in this room is well aware, Afghanistan remains one of the most critical foreign policy priorities for the United States. So I'm extremely pleased that USIP is able to host this morning National Security Advisor Atmar. And we are very honored, sir, that you chose to accept our invitation to come here and have a conversation with Washington policymakers on critical events that are occurring in Afghanistan. USIP has been deeply involved in Afghanistan since 2002. It's one of our longest and largest programs, and we've had an office there since 2008. And our Afghan team there works with government, religious leaders, civil society organizations to address the underlying causes of instability and to create the conditions for peace. So this is a really important moment for a conversation on the Afghan peace process. Last month, the Afghan government hosted the Kabul Peace Conference and made a very forward-leaning offer to the Taliban to find a political solution to the conflict. Also last month, the Taliban indicated their willingness to talk to the United States about peace. And next week, President Ashraf Ghani will open a conference together with the president of Uzbekistan on regional support for a peace process. Earlier this month, USIP hosted Ambassador Alice Wells from the U.S. Department of State who joined us to shed light on the U.S. response to all of these recent developments. So this is an important opportunity to now hear directly the Afghan perspective with the Afghan National Security Advisor, Mohammed Hanif Atmar. We very much appreciate your coming today to share your thoughts and to give us an update on how the Afghan government is approaching this process for peace, especially as it deals with multiple security threats from within the country. Of course, I also want to extend a special welcome to Ambassador Moib, the Afghanistan Ambassador here in the United States. National Security Advisor Atmar has been a critical leader in Afghanistan. He's been the Minister of Interior, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. And his efforts through the years have led to remarkable gains, most particularly in the education of girls. But also in rural infrastructure, in governance, and much more. He was a driving force in the creation of the first Afghan National Development Strategy and he has been an important partner in peace efforts. So today he will discuss the security challenges that Afghanistan faces and a potential path for peace. He will make some opening remarks and then he will be joined on stage by Steve Hadley, our Board Chair here at USIP, and of course the national, the former National Security Advisor for President George W. Bush. So we will have the great opportunity of listening in to a conversation between former and current National Security Advisors, followed by questions from the audience. So please join me now in welcoming Afghan National Security Advisor Atmar. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Ms. Nancy Landberg. Excellency Hadley. Andrew Wilder. Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's such a privilege to come and talk to such a distinguished audience. It's an honor to be invited by the famous institute with its remarkable achievements worldwide, but particularly in Afghanistan. So let me first take this opportunity to thank the USAIP for not just inviting me and my delegation, but for the excellent work it has undertaken in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Colleagues, today I'm here to represent the President of Afghanistan and our people in thanking you all to pay our respect and appreciation to the sacrifices of your brave men and women in uniform, your dedicated diplomats, aid workers, researchers, and politicians and policymakers. Afghanistan will continue to appreciate your service. Afghanistan will remain indebted forever for what you have achieved through our joint partnership. Some of you have personally served in Afghanistan or together with us on Afghanistan. I am personally grateful to each one of you for your dedicated service. I often argue that if you compare my country, our country, to what we were 17 years ago, despite all of the security challenges that we have now, we are certainly a totally different place for our citizens than we were 17 years ago, from every perspective. From the way we govern our country, the way we give voice to our people, men, women alike, to the education of our girls and boys, to healthcare that we provide to our citizens, and to economic uplift for millions of our people. I used to be a humanitarian worker in 90s and late 80s. So I understand where we were 17 years ago and where we are today. In this remarkable achievement of the people of Afghanistan, you've had a great contribution. And I'm particularly grateful to the generosity of your taxpayers, whose generosity actually meant more school, more education, more healthcare, and better living conditions for Afghans. Thank you for all of that. In today's opportunity, I was thinking of offering a few opening remarks on where we are with the security and the peace strategy, and then we'll have the honour of working together with Mr Hadley on responding to some of your questions, if you may have. To understand the peace offer that President Ghani generously made last month, let me first provide the context. Three things are important in that context. Number one is the threat that we are commonly faced with. This threat comes actually from an excess of violent extremism, transnational criminalised networks, and from covert state sponsorship of terrorism. It's not just a threat against Afghanistan. It's a threat against the region and by extension against the entire global community. So the starting point for our discussion, when we analyse the situation in the region, we must understand that this is a common threat from a common enemy which calls for a shared mission and responsibility. It's not just the Taliban and the Haqqani network that we are fighting. Increasingly, we see foreign fighters associated with at least three categories of terrorist networks. There are global terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda, Daesh, IS Khurasah, the regional terrorists such as IMU, ATIM from Central Asia and China, and Pakistani terrorists such as La Shkar-e-Taiba, Tahrir-e-Kitalabani Pakistan and Jais-e-Muhammad. All these four categories, the Afghans, the global, the regional and the Pakistanis, have symbiotic relationship among themselves. And they are all drawing on the criminalised economy chiefly on drugs. The drug networks need them and they need the drug income. And unfortunately, there has been a growth in the number of the foreign fighters in the country. Primarily because four years ago, there were 352,000 Afghan troops plus 140,000 more or less international troops in Afghanistan with a combat role with all the sophisticated weaponry and equipment humanity has ever produced. Now four years ago, a decision was made to transition the combat responsibility and security responsibility to the Afghans. Now four years ago, there was a Yank army and still not yet developed with its strategic capabilities including its air force. But the transition has taken place successfully. Yes, there has been setback, especially in rural areas. But no major population centre has ever, well, with the exception of Kundas, has been under control of Taliban, no one. And that was a temporary fall of the Kundas city. So what we have achieved, colleagues, that number one, I often hear this that when is the timeline to bring this to an end, well, our enemies unfortunately do not have any timeline in pursuit of their hostility towards all of us. But one thing that you have achieved that 17 years ago you had to intervene yourself, the international community, to dismantle the terrorist networks opposing the threat to all of us. Now that responsibility is shouldered by the Afghans. So we do the fight, we do the combat, with support that we very much appreciate from our U.S. and NATO partners. So one of the most significant achievements, in addition to the fact that Afghanistan is no longer safe haven for these terrorists, is the creation of the Afghan national security forces, which does the job. Now we will continue to require support from our international partners. So if you look at how much of the sacrifice in blood the Afghans do and how much our international partners, it is clear now that Afghanistan has begun to stand on its own feet also for defense purposes. In this process, the South Asia strategy of President Trump's administration has played a key role. We welcome the strategy, it has already a significant impact on the reduction of violence and capabilities of the terrorists and to create an enabling environment for our peace and reconciliation strategy. The response from the region has been mixed. First, unfortunately we haven't had any positive response from Pakistaners yet. Not any change in the policy that they are pursuing. And response from the region, the way the region is slightly mixed. While there is a regional consensus on peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, but the consensus on how to fight the terrorists has broken slightly. Unfortunately, there are actors in the region that draw a distinction between good and bad terrorists. And unfortunately, another sign of that breakdown of consensus is that we all agreed to have state-to-state relations for counter-terrorism. But there are those now who look at state-to-non-state actors' relations for counter-terrorism with serious implications for all of us. Like there are those who say that they work with the Taliban against Daesh against IS. And we say that not only this is unethical, but in terms of policy, this is self-defeating. Without going into details of this, we are in an environment where we have a significant progress, but we also have challenges primarily associated to the growth of the foreign fighters and the weakening of regional cooperation. So in this context, last month, based on the environment that was shaped pretty much by the South Asian strategy, Afghanistan launched two mutually reinforcing strategies, the peace and reconciliation and the counter-terrorism strategy. Now, the peace and reconciliation strategy aims to separate the Afghan Taliban from the foreign fighters. And we can make peace with them because they are Afghans, if they are interested in in peace. If we succeed in making peace with the Afghan Taliban and separate them from the foreign fighters, this will be the most effective regional and global counter-terrorism strategy because then the foreign fighters will not have a safe haven in Afghanistan. So at the same time, our counter-terrorism strategy is reinforcing our peace strategy because it aims to increase the number of reconcilable among the Taliban. The Taliban must know that they cannot win militarily and therefore the two strategies are essentially reinforcing each other. Those who believe that there is an inherent contradiction must look at the way these two strategies function as two sides of the same coin. There isn't any contradiction. They will have to be pursued simultaneously to get the result. Peace with the Afghan insurgents and defeat for the international terrorists trying to use Afghanistan against the rest of the world. In this context, President Ghani offered the most comprehensive, unconditional and far-reaching peace offer to the Taliban. I mean, you are familiar with the key features of the offer ranging from a legal package to a political, security and economic package addressing all the key issues that the Taliban have been concerned with. But at the same time, we did mention to them that there are some key enablers. These are not preconditions but key enablers. A renunciation of violence, cutting ties to international terrorism and full respect for the Afghan constitution and especially the rights of our women and minorities. There hasn't been any official response from the Taliban as yet to the offer. They are still pondering, consulting each other. But the unfortunate fact is that there has been increase in violence since the launch of the peace strategy, the peace offer. So clearly it is suggested that there are those elements who do not want peace. Now, this will not deter us. We will continue to pursue the peace strategy but at the same time strengthen our counter-terrorism capabilities. The way forward on the peace strategy and to make sure that it succeeds, colleagues as always, it's complicated and therefore I would offer at least eight lines of effort as to how to move forward with the strategy. The first is that we have to strengthen the Afghan national security forces. The South Asia strategy provides a good basis for the international support and without the Afghan national security forces no peace and reconciliation would work in the country. Second, there will have to be national consensus for peace and reconciliation. Not just among political actors but also among all sections of our society. Women must see themselves in the process. Our minorities will have to be comfortable with the peace process. It will have to be a peace process for all Afghans. Third point, there will have to be an intra-Afghan process of dialogue. We have had good success with the Hezboislami process. Hezboislami was one of the three major insurgent groups, Taliban Haqqalis and the two others. So it worked with them an intra-Afghan process and we believe it will, but we need to have the right support for that process. Fourth, US and Afghan alignment is key to the process. We have to make sure that the two countries are fully aligned in pursuit of the peace process. Fifth is regional cooperation. As I said, for the success of both strategies, peace and reconciliation and counter-terrorism, we have to have regional consensus and regional support. As I said, terrorism is a common threat to the entire region and they need to know how we fight them. Peace and reconciliation is also of interest to all of them and they need to know whether their interests are taken into account. In addition to Pakistan, Iran, India, Turkey, Central Asian states, China and Russia, we are also looking at the critical role that Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries can play in this respect, particularly to support the intra-Afghan dialogue. Saudi Arabia, for instance, would have enormous influence in the process and one of the things that we will be doing together with our colleagues here is exactly to explore how that influence can be honest for a peace process. We often hear about the Qatar office of Taliban. It can play a role but it must start doing that and soon rather than later, they've been there for seven years and we are talking to them that if you are not there for peace, then you cannot be there for war either. So they have to start engaging in the process. Finally is the role of Pakistan, which is central to both the peace process and the counter-terrorism. We are engaging them at different levels. There has been a strong welcome from Pakistan aside for the peace initiative but we are engaging them now to offer some concrete measures as to what can they do together with us to support the peace process. On counter-terrorism, there is a huge difference of view between them and us. That's the sad reality. We are simply putting this to them that there will be no foreign fighters without Taliban in Afghanistan and there will be no Taliban insurgency without sanctuaries in Pakistan. So we need to see some action. A good process of dialogue has been initiated on a Pakistan-Afghanistan action plan. I hope we will reach an agreement there but that will definitely be necessary for the South Asia strategy and regional cooperation to support. With this colleagues, I just wanted to explain the context in which we are in and how these two mutually reinforcing strategies can actually work together. I will be looking forward to your comments and questions. Thank you again. Well, thank you very much. We are delighted that you are here with us today. There is no one who has been more involved in Afghan's effort for peace, Afghan's efforts on security, Afghan's efforts with its neighbors and with U.S.-Afghan relations than Hanifat are and we're delighted to have you here. Also, thank you for your comments. I think it provided a context that has not really penetrated the Washington media or policy community. We're grateful for that. What we're going to do is it's now about 11.05 and we have a hard stop at about 11.30. So I'm going to ask two or three questions of the National Security Advisor and then at about 11.15 maybe a little bit before that we're going to take questions from the audience. There will be roving microphones that will come to you. Please introduce yourself, ask your question and please keep it short because the shorter the questions, the more questions we'll be able to get and take advantage of this opportunity. I want to start if I can with something you said about the peace offer and I don't think American office really appreciate how remarkable this peace offer was. It was unconditional. It talks about the possibility of Taliban participation in a political process and it also talked about while the Constitution needed to be respected it also could potentially be amended. So there could be a dialogue on that issue. These are major moves by President Agani and they deserve recognition and support. You said one thing that was very important which was that there needs to be intra-Afghan reconciliation and one of the things we've had concerns here Andrew Wilder and his team about if you have a reconciliation of Pakistan which took up arms against the Afghan people but don't have a reconciliation among the Afghan people what lessons do people draw from that. Could you say a little bit more about that intra-Afghan process you've talked about what's the objective, what's the process and where are you on that because that is a crucial element of the peace process. Absolutely. Well the way we look at it is challenge number one peace between the state of Afghanistan and the state of Pakistan. Our people are good friends and have always had a mutually beneficial relationship. The problem has been the relationship between the two states. So that's element number one. Element number two is intra-Afghan peace with Taliban and the Haqqani network as I said with Hezbollah, it did happen but with these two we need to work on. And the third element is the foreign fighters in this that we cannot make peace with. They're not Afghans and they do not necessarily pursue an Afghan objective. Their objectives are beyond Afghanistan so we will have to have some kind of counter-terrorism against them. Now with the Afghans the Taliban and the Haqqanis are no longer a monolithic organization. They do not have the same level and strength of leadership as they used to. So they are brought together by foreign influence and there are leaders now among the Taliban and the Haqqani network that question the continuation of the conflict. And they are certainly in contact with our peace council and with the government and they are asking for a process whereby they and their families are protected to engage in peace. Something Mr. Hadley that needs to be understood that most of the, if not all of the Taliban and Haqqani leaders have their families as a collateral kept somewhere and that is the way they are to be trusted with what they are doing at the moment. So they are concerned about their families, they are concerned about their own safety. So with this group our strategy is that obviously they are reconcilable and we need to talk to them. But of course there is an irreconcilable element there as well. As I said for them this conflict is as much about economics as about politics. They are drawing on proceeds from the drug and criminalised economy and they are not alone in that. There are state and non-state elements that also benefit of course not to mention corrupt officials in Afghanistan. But when it comes to the regional states and their involvement in it so the peace offer alone will not be enough. We have to have the right balance between incentives and disincentives. But when it comes to the reconcilable elements again the challenge is that the government of Afghanistan must have a solid national consensus to be able to engage them. It cannot be seen as peace for one section of the Afghan society and lack of peace for another section. It will have to be a solid consensus on the basis of which the intra-Afghan process will work. Now are we capable of having that? The consensus built for the Hisbislami process gives us hope that we are capable of having it. Of course every Afghan has suffered a lot but they are still kind enough, generous enough to embrace a principle peace opportunity. But that process of national consensus will have to be supported by regional and international consensus. So it's complicated because of the different aspects. How to do that? We will be exploring that further with our American colleagues as well as countries like Saudi Arabia and UAE. And if I could just ask you one more question about that before moving. What is the mechanism for that intra-Afghan reconciliation? What is the mechanism for building that consensus in support of an outreach to the Taliban? Is it the High Peace Council? Is it an electoral process? Is it a juror process? What is the mechanism within Afghanistan to achieve that objective? We have all agreed that this is the High Peace Council, the mechanism representing almost all of the political actors, the political community as well as civil society and women. So they are the mechanism but they will have to be supported by the state institutions to establish the process. The electoral process is obviously the future. Now we often hear about sharing of power with the Taliban. Our position, the position of people of Afghanistan is that there is an electoral process. Come and participate in the process and if you are interested in power that's the only way forward to have the political authority to govern. So all of these processes will be open to embrace Taliban participation. I want to ask you two more questions and then I will throw it open to the group. You talked about Pakistan and what you're doing there and the need for regional actors to support this process. There's been a lot of focus in the media these days about Russia. We talked a little bit before about the role Russia is playing. I'd like to talk a little bit about that. And then also I think if you could address the internal security situation in Afghanistan. We've read press reports of the terrible attacks, many of them by Daesh that have killed innocent Afghans and we express our condolences for those. But we read about those and it gives the impression to Americans that the security situation is deteriorating rather than getting better. So could you address one, the role Russia is playing and two, a little bit about the internal security situation and the strategy for combating the challenges you now face. And then we'll go to the audience. Until quite recently we've had this regional consensus and Russia was part of it. Over the past couple of years unfortunately there has been weakening of the regional consensus. Where we agree with the Russians is that the terrorism and especially the foreign fighters are a threat to all of us. Second agreement is that the best way forward is peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan. So we agree on these two issues. Where we disagree is when we hear about the distinction that is made between good and bad terrorists and then finding a way to work with Taliban. Now of course we've received assurance that Taliban will not be provided with weapons and resources. We would welcome that assurance and we would like to see that in practice. But we also get concerned that when they claim that there are US, NATO, Afghan unmarked helicopters so-called bringing Daesh from the south or even the tribal areas of Pakistan to the north of the country. And just quite recently during the Kabul conference we respectfully engaged them and said if you have any evidence of this happening please produce it and we welcome a joint regional investigation into the evidence that you've provided. But if you don't have evidence we do have evidence that we would like you to have a look at. And the evidence that we have is that already we have over 80 Daesh IS related, associated foreign fighters in our custody. So we asked them to come and question them as to where they were recruited, who trained them, who provided them with resources and brought them into Afghanistan and to the northern region. I'm sure we need to do a little bit more of that with them that we constructively engage each other and look at the evidence we have. But frankly speaking sometimes when we engage these regional actors it's not so much about Afghanistan. It's about other interests that they have outside Afghanistan and like always bringing those interests or those conflicts into Afghanistan. So therefore we suggested to our American and western partners that probably Afghanistan is the place where we all have a common interest to cooperate. Like as China said that they want to see Afghanistan as a cooperation place with the United States and NATO not as a confrontation place. I hope that is also the case with the Russians and Iran and other regional actors. You're absolutely right about these heinous acts of terror in the country including the one on Nauru's killing over 26 of our innocent people. These attacks have increased over the past couple of weeks in a way in response to the significant setbacks and crashing that the Taliban suffered and the IS suffered in rural areas. So they resort to this level of violence as an act of desperation. It's desperation because they no longer think about the hearts and minds of the people. So they just commit a level of violence to demonstrate to the world that they exist, that they have not been crashed entirely and that is the wrong way to actually send a message. Well, we do realize that we need to do a lot more to prevent these attacks from happening. A certain degree of this will be happening all the time, unfortunately. But if you look at the growing strength of the Afghan national security forces with the right support from our international partners as we strongly believe, not the same way that they have kept the country together without any direct combat role of the international forces, they will be able to improve security in urban areas as well. Thank you. We'll now go to your questions from the audience. If the microphones will come down, if you'll raise your hand, we will bring you a microphone. Let's start the gentleman back there. Thank you, sir. Mr. Atmar, as you mentioned that China see Afghanistan as a place of cooperation with the U.S. What is China's interest in the future of Afghanistan and how it could be helpful in the peace process to help change Pakistan's conduct toward peace? Thank you. Why don't we take two questions at a time? That way we'll get more people. Another question for National Security Advisor? Peace. Here. Second row. Ray Dubois, member of the International Advisory Council here at USIP and a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic International Studies. Following on Steve's question about intra-Afghanistan peace process, it would seem that the involvement to have it driven by Kabul alone and not including the provinces and the province governors and the power centers outside of Kabul, it would seem that would be the right way to approach this. Not too many years ago, I was in Mazar having tea with Governor Atta and I'm aware of the differences between the president and Governor Atta. So in general, the provincial involvement in the peace process and in particular, can you give us some insights into the Governor Atta President Ghani differences, shall we say? On China, their number one interest is security. They're extremely worried about ETIM, the so-called East Turkestan Islamic Movement. Their number we estimate to be between three to five hundred fighters in Afghanistan, mostly coming from Pakistan and the region. The last group of them that we arrested was basically a family with six children, two women and a couple of male fighters. These are from Xinjiang province. China knows about it. Frankly speaking, until quite recently they had this wrong information that perhaps the United States or India is behind the ETIM fighters. We engaged them and provided them with the evidence. So now they have a better understanding that ETIM moves out of China, goes all the way to Vietnam, to Indonesia, ends up in Turkey, comes back to Pakistan and then Afghanistan to fight. So they have a better understanding of the threat now. And therefore there's confidence in our cooperation now with them. But of course they also have an economic interest. The One Built One Road vision they present for the region cannot happen without stability in the region and security in Afghanistan. Security in Afghanistan is central to the stability in the region. Afghanistan in addition offered its vision probably the most comprehensive vision for economic reintegration and regional connectivity that President Ghani has so eloquently presented to the leadership of China and the leadership of the entire Central Asia is now having more traction. So we are cooperating with them on both regional economic cooperation as well as regional security and counter-terrorism. They are fully supportive of the peace and reconciliation and we have obviously slight difference of view as to how that needs to happen. Their primary focus is to encourage the Taliban through soft means. We agree on that but add that there must be some disincentives when it comes to the irreconcilable elements and disincentives will have to be provided by Pakistan. As long as the Taliban leaders have safe haven in Pakistan and they're able to follow on the proceeds from drugs there will always be an element of irreconcilable. So that needs to be addressed. We are working on the Chinese on that aspect as well. On the differences between the national unity government rather than President Ghani with Gavan Arata the good news is that hopefully we have brought that to an end. So yesterday and yesterday Kabul time or maybe still today a new governor was introduced to the job. Gavan Arata reached an agreement with the national unity government. Our commitment was always for a peaceful and principled way to resolve the differences. No matter what difference we Afghans may have but we have a common threat a common enemy and we have to strengthen our national unity. Hence our emphasis on the involvement of all political actors at national and provincial level to be involved in the peace process so that they don't see it as a threat to themselves. Now with Hisbislami this was exactly our challenge. Hisbislami did have a difficult past with other Mujahideen factions but hopefully now they are learning to work together. And this is exactly the hope that we have that with the Taliban if they show commitment to dropping violence and terrorist acts based on our constitution joined the political process the rest of the actors in the country will be supportive. But where we need to have the ground rules and that is important. Number one is the role of Islam in our country. With the interpretation that the majority of Afghans have not the interpretation that the Taliban have that is ground rule number one. Ground rule number two is democracy and representative democratic polity and ground rule number three is human rights and the rights of our citizens men and women alike. These three things if in place I believe national consensus of all actors provincial or national will be conceivably achieved. We've regrettably come to the end of our time the National Security Advisor has a hard stop at 11.30 and the clock here says it is 11.30. I want to thank you all for coming for your questions. Sorry you did not have time. Please join me in thanking Anifatmar for his time. Ladies and gentlemen please remain in your seats until the official party departs.