"Taliban is the biggest gainer and India a key loser from Trump's Taliban deal. Afghanistan's future is bleak": Rakesh Sood, former Ambassador to Afghanistan, to The Wire.

One of India’s most distinguished former Ambassadors to Afghanistan, who thereafter also served as Ambassador in Nepal and France, Rakesh Sood, has said: “Taliban is the biggest gainer and India a key loser from Trump’s Taliban deal. Afghanistan’s future is bleak”. Mr. Sood says that the biggest loser is the Afghan people and, in particular, that age group of the population who were either born after the Taliban lost power in 2001 or came of age after that year. The Taliban’s refusal to accept Afghanistan’s constitution, democracy and civil liberties places in danger the environment and culture in which this demographic age group grew up.

In a 40-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Mr. Sood said that when political talks start on Monday between the Taliban and the Afghan government it will be a weak Afghan government that will be negotiating. This weakness is underlined by the fact that America has pointedly not congratulated President Ghani on his re-election. Since then, of course, President Trump has even begun to speculate about the possibility of Taliban taking over in Kabul. The second reason for weakness on the Afghan government side is the split between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani. Although Mr. Abdullah has ceased to be CEO he is challenging Mr. Ghani’s election and has threatened to form a parallel government. All of this will put the Afghan government side at a disadvantage when they sit down opposite the Taliban for talks.