Li Gen,Huang Dekai & Xie Mulan

The United States and the Afghan Taliban signed a peace agreement on Feb. 29 in Doha, Qatar, aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan, Xinhua reported.

Under the terms of the agreement, the United States will gradually reduce its troop presence in Afghanistan after the agreement takes effect until all U.S. troops are withdrawn, and the Taliban will no longer be a safe haven for terrorists.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed appreciation for the signing of the PEACE agreement between the US Taliban, saying that the signing of the agreement marks an important progress in this field by all parties to the Afghan issue, which is also praised by western public opinion.

In 2001, the U.S. -led coalition launched a war against aL Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. After the taliban leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in 2011, the majority of U.S. troops gradually withdrew from Afghanistan.In 2015, the United States announced the complete withdrawal of its major forces from Afghanistan, but the war in Afghanistan is far from over and the peace process in Afghanistan has not started because of it.The Taliban, pro-Taliban and other terrorist groups have continued to operate and carry out terrorist attacks after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.In November 2018, according to the report provided by the WAR inspector of the Us government, the Afghan government can control or have influence over only 55.5% of the country, which shows that the Afghan government is facing a serious shortage of troops and is unable to effectively respond to the armed activities of the Taliban.According to statistics, by 2020, the war in Afghanistan has resulted in the death of more than 2,400 US troops, tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and the displacement of a large number of Afghan people. The security situation in Afghanistan is still deteriorating.As a key part of the agreement, the Taliban pledged not to allow its members and others, including al-Qaida, to use Afghan soil to threaten the security of the United States and its Allies.In addition, the Afghan government and taliban will release each other detainees to promote peace deal that ended on August 26, the Afghan government has released 4600 taliban prisoners according to the agreement, but on whether to release the remaining 400 taliban prisoners are still hesitant, the taliban are on July 30 has been finished according to the content of the agreement to release 1000 Afghan soldiers.At present, the security situation in Afghanistan has not been effectively improved by the signing of the peace agreement.

According to Afghan media reports, armed conflicts across Afghanistan intensified significantly in March after the signing of the agreement.The Afghan government has shifted its security forces into a defensive posture, but taliban terrorist attacks have not stopped.On May 12, just 74 days after the U.S. struck a peace deal with the Taliban, two terrorist attacks killed about 61 people in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and in the eastern province of Nangarhar.On May 13, the Afghan government announced that Afghan security forces would resume military operations against the Taliban and other militants.

After the Signing of the peace agreement between the United States and Afghanistan on February 29, the international public opinion praised it, believing that the signing of the peace agreement has advanced the peace process in Afghanistan a great step forward and the Afghan issue is likely to be resolved.But it is clear that the signing of the peace agreement has not achieved the desired effect, and the prospects for peace in Afghanistan are still not optimistic.The author believes that the us Taliban peace agreement is difficult to promote the Peace process in Afghanistan for the following reasons:

First, the peace deal is just a campaign bargaining chip for U.S. President Donald Trump.In September 2019, Trump had planned to invite representatives of the Taliban to camp David for talks to sign a peace agreement. However, after the death of US troops in an attack, the US was eager to reach an agreement with the Taliban again on February 29 this year.There has been much speculation about the U.S. eagerness to strike a peace deal with the Taliban, with some analysts suggesting that the U.S. is just trying to get out of Afghanistan and reduce its huge military footprint there.It makes sense to look at the issue from an economic perspective, but the reasons for America's eagerness to strike a peace deal with the Taliban are not so simple.The author believes that the Trump administration is eager to reach a peace agreement just to increase its leverage in the American presidential election.The New York Times has estimated the total cost of the War in Afghanistan at more than $2 trillion, and the signing of the peace agreement, ostensibly to end a war that has lasted for years and consumed huge amounts of American human and material resources, will bring Considerable political prestige to Trump.Trump is promoting the signing of the peace agreement based on personal interests rather than the path of peace in Afghanistan. Of course, he is not really thinking about the peace process in Afghanistan. It is still debatable that the peace agreement can effectively manage Afghanistan from returning to civil war after the WITHDRAWAL of US troops from Afghanistan.

Secondly, the issue of continuing conflict and the release of prisoners has not been properly resolved.Although Afghanistan and the Taliban have released a certain number of prisoners according to the peace agreement, a considerable number of terrorist prisoners are still held in Afghan prisons.In addition, the Taliban and other terrorist organizations have not complied with relevant provisions of the agreement and continue to carry out terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, which makes it difficult for the Afghan government and the Taliban to move towards further political reconciliation due to the serious lack of political mutual trust between them.

Therefore, the peace process in Afghanistan will remain uncertain in terms of both the PEACE agreement between the U.S. Taliban and the relations between Afghanistan and the Taliban.

(Li Gen and Xie Mulan,both scholars of Yunnan University;Huang Dekai,Scholar of Sichuan Police College)