Asasabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan – The arrival of spring has turned the fields green in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, which shares a border with Pakistan.
Bukharis, traditional Afghan heaters, have been switched off as the rapeseed blossoms.
As well as picturesque landscapes, with spring comes a new fighting season in Afghanistan. Every year, around this time, the Taliban announce their offensive.
“It is not the announcement of the Taliban spring offensive that keeps us worried,” Nur Alam, an elderly man in Asadabad, told Al Jazeera. “This year, all our attention is on the peace talks”.
Since last February, US and Taliban representatives have held several rounds of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital where the group has an office, to set the terms of a possible peace deal, leading to hopes that the new fighting season may not even begin.
But according to Barnett Rubin, an expert with New York University’s Center for International Cooperation and a former adviser to the State Department and the United Nations,
“if an agreement on the troop withdrawal will not be reached and the Taliban will announce the spring offensive, it will be intense as ever.”
On April 7, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement before leaving Kabul where he underscored the need to “reduce violence across Afghanistan” in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the streets are full of chatter about the peace talks, and what they might mean for unstable provinces like Kunar.
“We have been waiting for about 40 years for some security and prosperity,” said Haji Nazeer Ahmad Pasarly, who lives in Dangam, a district in Kunar’s east. “The talks have already had a strong impact on the Taliban, their fighting has certainly deescalated.”
Others in Kunar share his sense of optimism.
Asasabad, Kunar Province, Afghanistan – The arrival of spring has turned the fields green in the northeastern Afghan province of Kunar, which shares a border with Pakistan.
Bukharis, traditional Afghan heaters, have been switched off as the rapeseed blossoms.
As well as picturesque landscapes, with spring comes a new fighting season in Afghanistan. Every year, around this time, the Taliban announce their offensive.
“It is not the announcement of the Taliban spring offensive that keeps us worried,” Nur Alam, an elderly man in Asadabad, told Al Jazeera. “This year, all our attention is on the peace talks”.
Since last February, US and Taliban representatives have held several rounds of talks in Doha, the Qatari capital where the group has an office, to set the terms of a possible peace deal, leading to hopes that the new fighting season may not even begin.
But according to Barnett Rubin, an expert with New York University’s Center for International Cooperation and a former adviser to the State Department and the United Nations,
“if an agreement on the troop withdrawal will not be reached and the Taliban will announce the spring offensive, it will be intense as ever.”
On April 7, US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad issued a statement before leaving Kabul where he underscored the need to “reduce violence across Afghanistan” in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the streets are full of chatter about the peace talks, and what they might mean for unstable provinces like Kunar.
“We have been waiting for about 40 years for some security and prosperity,” said Haji Nazeer Ahmad Pasarly, who lives in Dangam, a district in Kunar’s east. “The talks have already had a strong impact on the Taliban, their fighting has certainly deescalated.”
Others in Kunar share his sense of optimism.