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Afghanistan: The London Conference, 28 January - ECFR expert available to comment

Press advisory

Working with the Taliban

Afghanistan: The London Conference, 28 January - ECFR expert available to comment

• World leaders are gathering for the London Conference on Afghanistan, on Thursday 28 January.

• The Conference will be co-hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

• ECFR Afghanistan and security expert Daniel Korski is available for interviews and comment.
  

For all press enquiries, Daniel Korski can be reached at:

• Telephone: +44 7876 616 302
• Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Almost a decade after the start of the war in Afghanistan, the international community's efforts to establish a functioning democracy in the country along western lines have failed.

Daniel Korski believes that the international community must get realistic about what it can achieve in Afghanistan.

If it is to avoid diplomatic failure, Korski believes the London Conference must focus on making Afghanistan stable - even if this means working with the people the international community has fought for the past nine years, the Taliban.

Korski says:

"The ideal of a liberal Afghanistan is presently unachievable and can only be a long-term goal.

The London Conference must be less about international pledges of aid and soldiers and more about helping President Karzai negotiate with the Taliban. This may seem like a backward step to some - but it is only way forward if the country is going to get the stability it so desperately needs."

For other press enquiries send an email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call ECFR's press office on +44 (0) 207 031 1623.

Korski is the author of two Afghanistan policy papers published by ECFR - Shaping Europe's Afghan Surge and Afghanistan: Europe's Forgotten War.