Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
The US Secretary of State has reportedly written to Afghanistan's President to warn that US forces could be withdrawn completely by May. Antony Blinken has called for urgent leadership in the stalled peace talks with the Taliban, as the UK and other NATO allies wait on the US decision to determine the future of their own military presences. Mr. Blinken said...
The declarations of good intentions of the delegations of the government of Kabul and the Taliban before their return to Doha, Tuesday, January 5, for the continuation of the Afghan peace talks, after three weeks of hiatus, have fizzled. A few hours were enough for the masks to fall, raising fears of the worst for the future of...
President Joe Biden is testing whether he can bring sweeping changes in Afghanistan, including a potential government involving the Taliban, in a high-risk strategy as he weighs whether to honor a May deadline to end America's longest war. In a letter leaked to Afghan media over the weekend, Secretary of State Antony Blinken encouraged Afghan leaders to...
President Biden’s prediction that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by next year is being met with some skepticism.
The decision to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is linked to the intra-Afghan negotiations, retired U.S. General Joseph Votel told VOA in an interview. “It would seem that the start of this [intra-Afghan peace process] would be an opportunity where we...
Nearly three months after he abruptly ended talks with the Taliban, President Donald Trump has given his blessing to fresh diplomacy, but major obstacles stand in the way of a deal to end the Afghanistan war. Chief among the questions is how to address the...
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani won another five-year term in office, according to preliminary results the election commission announced on Sunday, nearly three months after votes were cast in an election tarnished by a record-low turnout. Mr. Ghani...
On a sunny day last July, thick fumes poured into the sky over Shahid Square in central Kabul. Half a dozen gunmen stormed up a building into the office of Afghanistan’s...
When Afghans cast ballots Saturday in parliamentary elections viewed as a crucial test run for the presidential vote, it will be a shrinking number of voters that braves the tide of Taliban and Islamic State violence. For the first time since a U.S.-led invasion forced the Taliban from power in 2001, elections won't be held across Afghanistan. Residents of an entire province won't go to the polls because the country's security forces can't protect polling stations there. Ghazni, the seventh most populous of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces at 1.3 million people, won’t be the only disenfranchised area. After...
Despite a shroud of violence and voting delays, more than 4 million Afghans cast their ballots in parliamentary elections last weekend, according to the country’s election commission. Afghans waited, often in long lines, to vote for 249 seats in the lower house of parliament, up for grabs for the first time in eight years. More than 2,500 candidates, including 417 women, vied for those seats. But violence leading up to the vote shook the nation, included the shooting death of Kandahar province’s police chief, Gen. Abdul Raziq, by one of his own guards. Ten candidates also...