Ahmad Massoud and Kamal Alam speak on the current political and security situation in Afghanistan

This interview was originally recorded on August 11, 2021.

Just weeks before US troops fully withdraw from Afghanistan—and as Taliban fighters conquer more territory across the country—Ahmad Massoud says he is open to negotiations with the militants.

“I am willing and ready to forgive the blood of my father for the sake of peace in Afghanistan and security and stability in Afghanistan,” said Massoud, son of the anti-Soviet resistance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, in an interview with the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. Massoud’s father was assassinated by al-Qaeda days before the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

But he and other Afghans are not willing to “give in to the will of terrorism,” added Massoud, who is based in the government-controlled Panjshir province in northeastern Afghanistan. “We are ready to create an inclusive government with the Taliban” through political negotiations, he explained, but what’s unacceptable is an Afghan government marked by “extremism and fundamentalism” that would pose a grave threat not just to Afghanistan but to the region and the wider world.

Massoud reflected on what brought Afghanistan to this perilous point and outlined the way forward for a peace process he believes has failed. The 32-year-old is among the prominent voices pushing for the resurrection of a coalition of anti-Taliban ethnic militias akin to the Northern Alliance of the late 1990s.

Read the full article here: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/ahmad-massoud-look-to-local-leaders-to-save-afghanistan/

Видео Ahmad Massoud and Kamal Alam speak on the current political and security situation in Afghanistan канала AtlanticCouncil