views of Afghanistan

 9-4-21     

  A Taliban fighter sits on the back of vehicle with a machine gun in front of the main gate leading to the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021.  RAHMAT GUL, AP

Stranded Afghan nationals arrive to return back to Afghanistan at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing point in Chaman on Aug. 16, 2021 as the Taliban were in control of Afghanistan after President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and conceded the insurgents had won the 20-year war.

AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

other photos are of the Pakistan-Afghan border where many Afghans were turned away, of Herat, of Kabul.     https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/world/2021/08/13/taliban-seize-key-cities-afghanistan/8120341002/

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8-19-21 Iran and Pakistan already officially host roughly 2.5 million displaced Afghans combined.  

  Iran hosted some 950,000 documented Afghan refugees and at least 2 million more undocumented Afghans….

  Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Kremlin was in no hurry to recognize Taliban as government….The Taliban, on the other hand, have tried to position themselves to be a centralized and strong government in Afghanistan — something that the Central Asian leaders are very familiar with.  Tajikistan has already accepted Afghan refugees and reportedly set up tent camps for hundreds of fleeing Afghans.  Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, on the other hand, have been very cautious in opening up their borders for refugees, with the Uzbek authorities even turning back Afghan military personnel who escaped to Uzbekistan after their bases were overrun by Taliban fighters…. 

  Over the years Beijing has shrewdly continued to engage diplomatically with the Taliban, most recently welcoming a high-level delegation to China in July.  Beijing is actively pursuing an accommodation with the new authorities in Kabul as it seeks assurances that a Taliban administration will neither foment trouble in Xinjiang nor disrupt China’s economic endeavors in Afghanistan…. Many observers in New Delhi are describing the U.S. military withdrawal and the subsequent Taliban takeover as a triumph of Pakistan’s Afghan policy….

  The Pakistani official statement also lauded the fact that the Taliban had averted major violence in Afghanistan, and it called on all parties in Afghanistan to respect the rule of law, protect fundamental human rights and ensure that Afghan soil is not used by any terrorist organization against any country.  Pakistan has not officially recognized the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan and has largely evacuated its diplomatic personnel.  In contrast to the careful official statements there is a sense of triumph within Pakistan that its policy of hedging and supporting the Taliban has paid off. 

 https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/08/how-region-reacting-taliban-takeover

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