The Negotiators Wondery

All manner of the rich and powerful have passed through the doors of the mountaintop Hotel Petersberg in Bonn, Germany. But perhaps never as motley a cast as the one that arrived on November 27, 2001 to negotiate an end to the wars in Afghanistan. Warlords, exiled monarchists, intellectuals, and enemies so fierce, some had already been trying to kill each other for decades. But a key element was missing; The Taliban was not invited. Australian Iranian investigative journalist and author Soraya Lennie got the story from some of the negotiators who were in the room.

Since taking power, the Taliban has cracked down on human rights and has deprived women and girls of fundamental freedoms. The outlook for productive engagement is dim. Yet there may have been a window, in the early months after the fall of the Republic, to do things differently. Researcher Vicki Aken speaks to aid workers and activists involved in direct negotiations with the Taliban as well as representatives from the US and Taliban governments. And she takes a look at two intertwined questions. What might have been done differently then? And what should, or could, be done now?

Once it became clear that US troops were leaving Afghanistan, the situation on the ground turned to panic. In August of 2021, radio reporter Shirin Jaafari found herself in the middle of the effort to find safe passage for Najiba Noor, a 27-year-old Afghan policewoman who was the target of threats and harassment by the Taliban. For this episode, Shirin reconnects with Noor and speaks with other people directly involved in the Digital Dunkirk – a mostly-online, grassroots effort to help vulnerable Afghans get to safety.

When a diplomatic deal goes bad, the blame usually falls on the politicians. Often we don’t even remember the names of the negotiators. But in the wake of the return of the Taliban, a lot of people have blamed one man: US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Khalizad was born in Afghanistan but has served in the US government since the 1980s. He was at Bonn, and he later served as US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations. Khalizad sat down with reporter Andrew North to discuss what went wrong – and right – during the negotiations for peace in Afghanistan.

As soon as the Doha Agreement was signed, the clock started counting down to May 1st, 2021 – the day the US had agreed to withdraw all troops. That gave the Afghan Republic and the Taliban 14 months to negotiate a power sharing deal. That’s not a lot of time, even under the best of circumstances. Afghan American reporter Ali Latiifi has an insider’s look at how friction within Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s administration delayed and derailed the negotiations. But, there’s enough blame to go around, with the Taliban playing a waiting game and the US refusing to intervene.

As a candidate for US President, Donald Trump vowed to end the war in Afghanistan. But six months after his inauguration, he changed his mind, saying that the US should “fight to win.” A year later, with the Taliban controlling or contesting more territory than at any point since 2001, representatives from the Trump administration traveled to Doha, Qatar to open direct negotiations with the Taliban. Finalized in February 2020, the Doha agreement was hailed by the Taliban as a victory. The Afghan government called it a historic betrayal. Veteran Middle East correspondent Sebastian Walker has the story.