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On Saturday in Doha, Qatar, began the long-awaited and historic peace conference between representatives of the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan, organized to find an agreement that would end a war that has been going on for almost twenty years and that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, many of them civilians. But reaching an agreement to form a shared government between the two factions will not be easy.
The conference, which was also attended by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is the result of the agreement reached last February between the Taliban and the United States, in which, however, the Afghan government, considered a puppet by the United States, did not participate. Taliban. That agreement had foreseen the beginning of the gradual withdrawal of some 13,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan, but according to the local government it had been concluded too quickly by the Donald Trump administration, giving too much to the Taliban and without many guarantees. Among other things, as a result of the agreement, 5,000 Taliban prisoners had been released. In return, representatives of the terrorist group had promised to decrease the number of attacks by promising not to make the country a safe haven for jihadist terrorists.
The American war in Afghanistan began in October 2001, when the then Republican administration of George W. Bush decided to invade the country in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, the 19th anniversary of which came on the eve of the peace conference. . The attacks were carried out by al Qaeda, an organization led by Osama bin Laden that had its bases in Afghanistan and was protected by the Afghan regime, controlled by the Taliban since the second half of the 1990s, an extremely radical group that had established an Islamic Republic in the country. .
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The American invasion brought about the rapid fall of the Taliban regime, but in a short time the group reorganized itself, initiating guerrilla action and attacks against soldiers and civilians – the so-called insurrection – which made Afghanistan the longest war ever fought by the United States. As the years passed, it became increasingly clear that the United States could never win, and the deal Trump struck was dictated by a desire to withdraw once and for all.
In the negotiations, the Afghan government faction – led by the president of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah – also includes opposition politicians and other officials, because the Taliban still do not recognize the government as legitimate, with which they do not they wanted to have direct negotiations. Among the priorities, for international observers, is an agreement for a ceasefire to halt Taliban attacks on Afghan soldiers and civilians. The next step will be to find a way to include the Taliban in a democratic government, also finding an agreement on the civil rights of the population and in particular of women and minorities: an operation that will be very complex.
The agreement reached in February between the United States and the Taliban, which provided for the interruption of mutual attacks, has so far been respected: there are still a few thousand American soldiers in the country, who should complete the withdrawal in the coming months.
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