Even 2 Years After Kabul’s Fall, Khalilzad Says Too Early to Review Taliban's Performance

Zalmay Khalilzad, former US special envoy for reconciliation in Afghanistan, said that it is still too early to draw conclusions about the performance of the Taliban.

Khalilzad told Afghanistan International that from his point of view, the current situation in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban has both positive and negative aspects.

According to Khalilzad, one of the positive aspects is that "fewer Afghans are killed now as compared to the past, people were tired of war and the US was also tired of killing Afghans”.

Khalilzad said that the situation of Afghanistan's economy is not good under the rule of the Taliban, but he immediately emphasised that the economy of Afghanistan was not good during the American-backed government either.

He rejected the opinion that the people inside Afghanistan are not witnessing improvement in the situation. Khalilzad said, “I do not agree that the opinion of the Afghan people is like this. There are different opinions -if all Afghans had the same opinion, these controversies would not have happened.”

In this interview, which will be published by Afghanistan International on August 15, the second anniversary of the fall of Kabul, Khalilzad stressed that depriving Afghan women and girls of the right to education and work is one of the negative points of the Taliban's government and said that if the group goes ahead with such approaches, it can not win the international community’s support.