1TV: Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission said on Saturday it invalidated votes from 1,179 polling stations in the recount and audit process. They are among 2,423 polling stations which were reported open on election day, but did not send any results, biometric devices or biometric data or only sent the results but no biometric devices/memory cards and biometric data. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Tolo News: The Independent Election Commission (IEC) warned on Saturday that if the electoral teams continue to oppose the recount process, the commissioners will call for government intervention. According to IEC officials, provincial offices are currently closed in seven provinces because of boycotting election team members. Those provinces are:Faryab, Sar-e Pol, Jawzjan, Badakhshan, Panjshir, Baghlan and Takhar. The IEC says the offices were closed by Abdullah Abdullah’s electoral team in protest of the recount. Click here to read more (external link).
Alice Wells
1TV: China has not taken steps that would make it a real contributor to Afghanistan’s stabilization, a top US State Department official said on Thursday. “I see opportunities for the United States and China to be important partners in reinforcing the need for a negotiated political settlement you see ambassador Khalilzad regularly consulting with his Chinese counterpart among other regional actors,” Alice Wells, top US diplomat for South Asia, said speaking at the Wilson Center, a Washington DC –based think tank. “But I haven’t seen China take the steps that would make it a real contributor to Afghanistan’s stabilization,” she said. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News: The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, or AIHRC, in a new report claims that violence against women in the country has increased 8 percent with 2,762 cases this year. The report, which was made public at a gathering in Kabul on Saturday, compares 2,536 cases of violence against women over seven months of last solar year—March 2018 to September 2018–to 2,762 cases in the same seven months of this solar year. Click here to read more (external link).
Donald Trump
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 23, 2019
ISLAMABAD – U.S. President Donald Trump has indicated peace negotiations with the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan are back on track and vowed again to withdraw American troops from the country.
“It is too early to say anything about it,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA when asked for his reaction to Trump’s remarks.
Prisoner swap
Trump’s remarks followed Monday’s successful prisoner swap that freed an American and an Australian professor in exchange for the release of three high-ranking insurgent prisoners by the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Additionally, the Taliban also released 10 Afghan soldiers as a “goodwill gesture.”
It was widely thought that the release of American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, who had been held hostage since August 2016, could lead to a resumption of U.S.-Taliban negotiations.
“Let’s hope this leads to more good things on the peace front like a cease-fire that will help end this long war,” Trump tweeted Tuesday while praising the release of the Western hostages.
There was no immediate reaction from the Taliban as to whether their stalled talks with the U.S. have resumed.
September talks
Trump abruptly called off the yearlong dialogue in early September, citing a string of Taliban attacks in Kabul that killed among others an American soldier. Trump defended his decision Friday.
“The last time I was supposed to have an agreement, then they (Taliban) thought when they came over, they thought it would be good to kill people so they could negotiate from a position of strength,” Trump explained.
At the time when Washington suspended the talks with the Taliban, the two adversaries in the 18-year-old Afghan war had come close to signing an agreement to set the stage for an American military drawdown in return for insurgent counterterrorism guarantees and commitments to enter into intra-Afghan peace talks.
Chief U.S. peace negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Friday he was hopeful the prisoner swap would lead to “a reduction in violence and rapid progress” toward a political settlement involving the Afghan government, the Taliban and other Afghan leaders.
“The Afghan people yearn for peace and security, and we stand with them,” tweeted the Afghan-born American diplomat.
However, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen earlier this week rejected as untrue reports that his group had agreed to engage in direct negotiations with the Afghan government in the wake of the successful prisoner swap.
The Taliban remains strongly opposed to any peace talks with the Kabul administration, dismissing it as an American puppet.
Related
BBC News: On 18 October 2012, a UK Special Forces soldier shot dead four young people in an Afghan village. Their families say three of them were children. It looks like a war crime but nobody has been prosecuted. The soldier who killed the boys had reportedly claimed to detectives that he acted in self-defence. He told them he shot two of the four because they were pointing weapons from the window, and he shot at the other two when they appeared out of the shadows. But the boys’ families say that cannot be true. They say none of the four had weapons and that they could not have posed a threat to the heavily armed UK special forces soldier. “All four were drinking tea and were killed while they were sitting,” said Naik and Fazel’s older brother, Sultan Mohammed. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
November 22, 2019
The United States says it supports India’s continued involvement in Afghanistan, including its “substantial” investment and aid to the war-ravaged country.
“The United States welcomes India’s substantial investment in and assistance to Afghanistan,” Nancy Izzo Jackson, a State Department official in charge of Afghanistan, told a conference in Washington on November 21.
“And we will continue to support efforts to achieve an honorable and enduring outcome in Afghanistan that preserves our investment in Afghanistan’s future,” she told the gathering focusing on New Delhi’s role in Afghanistan.
India has been active in its support of the Kabul government since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion that drove the Taliban from power, contributing some $3 billion in the past 18 years and building Afghanistan’s new parliament building.
India also has an influence on daily life in Afghanistan, as it does in many countries of the region, because of its cultural offerings, including immensely popular Bollywood films.
India’s bitter nuclear rival, Pakistan — which lies between Afghanistan and India — has kept a cautious eye on New Delhi’s efforts in Afghanistan in part because of fears of encirclement.
With reporting by AFP
Ariana: Afghanistan women’s national under-23 football team defeated Turkmenistan 2-1 in their first game at the Central Asian Football Association U-23 Women Championship on Friday. Click here to read more (external link).