Dec 25, 2010

On 20th  December  2010,  Centre  for
Conflict & Peace Studies (CAPS) hosted Mr Steve Coll, the CEO of New America Foundation, a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller ‘Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001’.
The Director of CAPS, Mr Hekmat Karzai, welcomed Mr. Coll to the centre and informed him that his work on Afghanistan, especially the book Ghost Wars was a very popular source of reference for all the researchers at CAPS.

Later, Ms Mariam Safi, the Head of Research at CAPS, presented a profile of CAPS, outlining the centre’s functions and activities, especially in the fields of research, analysis and training. After that, Mr Karzai presented the Afghan perspective to the present military action, with particular focus on the various grievances of the Afghan people against these military actions. An open discussion on the future of Afghanistan, during which various topics including institutionalisation of the Taliban, peace and reconciliation, sustainability of military operations, increasing local participation, capacity of the Afghan National Army etc were discussed.

Mr Coll also informed CAPS that the American people were not against the war in Afghanistan and that this had created a consensus in Washington for continued presence in Afghanistan.

In the end, Mr Karzai thanked Mr Coll for visiting CAPS and both of them expressed interests to organise future discussion on Afghanistan.