Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan

JohninMK wrote:Erdogan trying to extend his influence


At a moment the Biden administration seems to have resigned itself to sitting by and watching as the Taliban takes back all of Afghanistan, and as the Pentagon has revised its assessment saying it fears Kabul will fall within one month to 90 days, Turkey is setting itself up to be a major player in the country after the dust settles.

This could involve Turkey doing its own deal with the Taliban, while being the last major NATO member presence in the country amid the US exit, given Turkish troops are still running and guarding Kabul international airport as the last foreign troops are still flying out.

On Wednesday President Tayyip Erdogan raised eyebrows by for the first time saying he might soon meet with the leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, in Turkey.
Getty Images

Erdogan made the statements to CNN Turk, and cast the prospect of such a controversial potential meeting as part of efforts to end the fighting in Afghanistan. Here's what he said according to translation on Daily Sabah:

   "The latest developments and the situation of the Afghan public are really, really troubling," Erdoğan said.

   "Maybe I will even be in a position to receive the person who is their leader," Erdoğan added, after referring to efforts by Turkish officials for talks with the Taliban.

   Erdoğan last month said Turkey would hold discussions with the Taliban as part of the peace process.

   "Why? Because if we do not get control of things like this at a high level, it won't be possible to secure peace this time in Afghanistan," he added

He also in Wednesday statements criticized the US for encouraging allies on the ground in Afghanistan who had worked with the US coalition - such as local Afghan translators and security personal (now being threatened by the Taliban and other Islamists) - to seek the safety of regional countries before seeking asylum in the US.

As Bloomberg describes of the scathing comments:

   Turkey on Wednesday blasted the U.S. for recommending that Afghans fearful of a vengeful Taliban seek asylum in America from third countries.

   "Turkey does not, and will not, serve as any country’s waiting room," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, told Bloomberg on Wednesday. "We will continue to do everything in our power to preserve the safety of our borders."

Meanwhile the Biden administration continues to face criticism and anger over the scale of just how fast things have deteriorated, given as one senior EU official has pointed out over 65% of the country is now firmly in Taliban control, including at least eight provincial capitals.

A prominent former US ambassador to Afghanistan under the Obama administration, Ryan Crocker, has gone so far as to lash out at Biden for abandoning the country the US spent 20 years attempting to secure to the Islamist enemies.

"This is a handover to the Taliban," Crocker told Bloomberg TV Wednesday. He said the US-backed national government now perceives "rightly that we have hung them out to dry. We did a deal with their enemy."

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/erdogan-might-host-taliban-leader-us-ex-ambassador-blasts-biden-handover-enemies

Will Erdogan’s Afghan gambit pay off in Washington?

The general impression is that Ankara’s commitment to protect Kabul airport is only aimed at winning favor with Washington.

July 30, 2021

Many Turks are deeply concerned over President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s readiness to commit Turkish forces to provide the security at Kabul airport — despite the inherent dangers of such a mission — following the departure of US forces from that country.

The question is also being conflated with that of the dramatic increase in the number of Afghan refugees currently heading for Turkey, in the wake of US President Joe Biden’s decision to pull US forces out of Afghanistan.

The issue is causing an increasingly ugly political domestic debate between the Erdogan administration and the opposition, and also stoking racist sentiments among Turks against Arabs and Afghans.

To most seasoned Turkish diplomats, Erdogan’s willingness to take on the task of protecting Kabul airport is simply another one of his ill-conceived projects.

“To start with, nobody knows for sure whether this was Ankara’s offer or Washington’s suggestion,” wrote retired Ambassador Ali Tuygan in his Diplomatic Opinion blog.

“But the general impression is that this was an offer by the Turkish government to cajole Washington into a more understanding attitude on Turkish-American differences by putting Turkish troops in harm’s way,” he continued.

Turkish-American ties have been clouded for quite some time with multiple issues, including the question of Ankara’s purchase of Russian-made S-400 anti-missile defense systems that has resulted in US sanctions and other punitive measures being slapped on Turkey.

This has also contributed significantly to the serious downturn of the Turkish economy, as a result of which Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are said to be losing domestic credibility.

The expectation in government circles appears to be that any improvement in Turkish-US ties will also help the Turkish economy, thus shoring up Erdogan’s domestic support.

Ankara has also been seeking means to improve ties with Israel in order to facilitate better ties with Washington.

Retired Ambassador Suha Umar believes that Erdogan’s decision to take on the security of Kabul airport is a sign of desperation.

“This is an act that is based more on necessity than anything else,” he told Al Monitor, pointing at Turkey’s economic crisis as well as Ankara’s weakened hand on the international stage.

“For a country in this situation to undertake such a mission that is fraught with uncertainty — and which will require resources in every respect — does not appear sensible,” Umar said. “All that is left is a situation that reflects desperation.”

Few believe that Turkey’s involvement in Afghanistan after the departure of US forces will provide any benefits for Ankara. Many recall that Turkey’s involvement in Syria and Libya also fell short of achieving their ultimate objectives.

The end result, it is feared, will be that Turkish forces will be placed at risk while Erdogan’s adventurism drags the country into a quagmire.

“Would this put Turkish troops in harm’s way? Yes, definitely. Because the Taliban does not have to take over Kabul to disrupt the functioning of the airport, it has many other means at its disposal,” Tuygan wrote.

Meanwhile, Erdogan’s approach to the whole question also appears to be deeply confused and riddled with contradictions.

Erdogan is trying to reach out to the Taliban, on the one hand, by using Islamic rhetoric and castigating “imperial powers” that he accuses of having meddled in that country for decades.

On the other hand, he is calling on the principal target of his anti-imperial rhetoric, namely the United States, to provide financial and logistical support for the Turkish military mission at Kabul airport.

How he expects the Taliban not to see through this glaring contradiction is anyone's guess.

The Taliban clearly sees Turkish forces in Afghanistan as an extension of the US-led NATO mission in that country and has already used threatening language in calling on Turkey to also withdraw its troops.

Erdogan, nevertheless, appears to be relying on Sunni Islam as the lowest common denominator that will facilitate talks between Ankara and the Taliban.

“Turkey and the Taliban should be able to conduct these talks easily since there is nothing out of keeping with Turkey’s beliefs and their beliefs,” Erdogan told reporters recently during a visit to northern Cyprus.

Not surprisingly, these remarks created uproar among secular Turks who are castigating Erdogan for placing Turkey and the Taliban in the same category.

Even some of Erdogan’s staunchest supporters like Hurriyet columnist Ahmet Hakan have rejected the notion of any equivalence between the practice of Islam in Turkey and the radical Islamic outlook of the Taliban.

Hakan nevertheless argued that Turkey’s Islamic character could facilitate a dialogue with the Taliban.

In criticizing Erdogan’s remark, liberal commentator Taha Akyol, however, stressed Turkey’s democratic and secular character as a social state based on the rule of law.

“Are we not going to remain [in Afghanistan] under NATO’s umbrella?” Akyol also asked in his column for Karar daily. “It is wrong to look at the matter from the perspective of faith and to think that there is nothing out of keeping [between Turkey and the outlook of the] Taliban."

Erdogan’s notion that Islam will bring Turkey and the Arab world closer also turned out to be a fallacy. This is clearly evident in the minimal support Ankara is getting from the Arab world over its involvements in Syria and Libya.

Umar pointed out that Ankara may be expecting the decision to take on the security of Kabul airport to improve ties with Washington, but stressed that the conditions for securing such an improvement are very different.

“If it could fulfill these conditions there would be no need for Turkey to take on any extra risks,” he said. He noted that taking on such extra risks is unlikely to improve ties with the United States.

Trying to appease the Taliban by claiming that Turkey and the Taliban share similar outlooks with regard to faith is also likely to stoke American suspicions regarding Turkish intentions.

“What this translates into as far as the West is concerned is this: ‘We share the same outlook as your enemies.’ It is very difficult to understand what kind of reasoning or policy this represents,” said Umar.

“One has to question the reliability of an ally who admitted last week that Turkey ‘does not have any conflicting issues with [the Taliban's] beliefs,’ wrote Aykan Erdemir from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“These comments ought to serve as red flags amid ongoing negotiations between Ankara and Washington over Erdogan's offer to deploy Turkish troops to guard Kabul's international airport after US departure,” Erdemir continued in an opinion piece for Newsweek.

With so many outstanding questions that remain unanswered, the domestic debate in Turkey —laced with much anger and recriminations — will only grow in the coming days and could leave Erdogan with much less in hand than he expected to gain with his Afghan gambit.

Mr Payenda has "resigned and left the country because Afghanistan is grappling with declining revenues after the takeover of the Customs posts"

flamming_python wrote:Afghan finance minister quits, flees the country

Mr Payenda has "resigned and left the country because Afghanistan is grappling with declining revenues after the takeover of the Customs posts"

Right. He must have seen the futures

American negotiators are trying to extract assurances from the Taliban that they will not attack the U.S. Embassy in Kabul if the extremist group overruns the capital in a direct challenge to the country's government, two American officials said.
The effort, led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief American envoy in talks with the Taliban, seeks to stave off an evacuation of the embassy as the fighters rapidly seize cities across Afghanistan. The Taliban's advance has put embassies in Kabul on high alert for a surge of violence in coming months, or even weeks, and forced consulates and other diplomatic missions elsewhere in the country to shut down.

American diplomats now are trying to determine how soon they may need to evacuate the U.S. Embassy should the Taliban prove to be more bent on destruction than a détente. On Thursday, the embassy urged Americans who were not working for the U.S. government to leave Afghanistan immediately on commercial flights.

Biden administration officials insist that there are no immediate plans to significantly draw down the embassy's staff of 4,000 employees, including about 1,400 Americans, as U.S. troops formally complete their withdrawal from the country.
"We are withdrawing our forces from Afghanistan, but we are not withdrawing from Afghanistan," the State Department said in a statement. "Although U.S. troops will depart, the United States will maintain our robust diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan."
Five current and former officials described the mood inside the embassy as increasingly tense and worried, and diplomats at the State Department's headquarters in Washington noted a sense of tangible depression at the specter of closing it, nearly 20 years after U.S. Marines reclaimed the burned-out building in December 2001.

Several people gloomily revived a comparison that all wanted to avoid: the fall of Saigon in 1975, when Americans were evacuated from the embassy from a rooftop by helicopter."

PapaDragon wrote:
Biden administration officials insist that there are no immediate plans to significantly draw down the embassy's staff of 4,000 employees, including about 1,400 Americans, as U.S. troops formally complete their withdrawal from the country.
"We are withdrawing our forces from Afghanistan, but we are not withdrawing from Afghanistan," the State Department said in a statement. "Although U.S. troops will depart, the United States will maintain our robust diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan."
Five current and former officials described the mood inside the embassy as increasingly tense and worried, and diplomats at the State Department's headquarters in Washington noted a sense of tangible depression at the specter of closing it, nearly 20 years after U.S. Marines reclaimed the burned-out building in December 2001.

Several people gloomily revived a comparison that all wanted to avoid: the fall of Saigon in 1975, when Americans were evacuated from the embassy from a rooftop by helicopter."

JohninMK wrote:Could be a bit late and who gets the Eagle?

[i]AFP News Agency
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#UPDATE Afghan government negotiators in Qatar have offered the Taliban a power-sharing deal in return for an end to fighting in the country, a government negotiating source told AFP on Thursday...

Sujoy wrote:Clear U.S involvement in Afghanistan to ensure that Taliban makes rapid progress. This explains why Pakistan has not been sanctioned yet by the U.S despite sending in 30,000 jihadis to Afghanistan in less than a month.