British Reuters reported on August 18 that British defence chief of staff and army general Nick Carter said on the same day that the world should give the Taliban room to form a new government in Afghanistan, and "may find that this group of militants who have been regarded as 'radicals' by the West for decades become more 'reasonable'" and "may find that this group of militants who have been regarded as 'radicals' in the West for decades has become more 'reasonable'"
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"We have to be patient, we have to be calm, we have to give them [the Taliban] space to form a new government, we have to give them space to show them credentials." "This Taliban may be different from the Taliban that people remember from the 1990s," Carter said. ”
"We will most likely find that if given enough space, the Taliban will be more 'sane'." We must remember that their organization is not monolithic, but is made up of a group of people from different tribes in the countryside across Afghanistan. ”
Carter said the Taliban "are basically a bunch of country boys living in 'Pashtun valleys' (the unwritten traditional social norms of the Pashtuns)" and that if you see the way they [the Taliban] currently run Kabul, you will find that they are not so harsh, and there are some signs that they have become more reasonable." ”
Carter also said that he had contacted former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who would hold talks with the Taliban on the 18th.
Nick Carter served in Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and received the Order of the British Empire. He became Britain's Chief of Defence Staff in 2018.
Nick Carter. (Pictured from Reuters)
The Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan, including Kabul, in the mid-to-late 1990s and established the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan." However, during this period, a series of Islamic fundamentalist policies of the Taliban regime have caused dissatisfaction in many countries and have not been widely recognized by the international community.
After regaining control of Kabul after years, the Taliban said at its first news conference on August 15 that it wanted an "inclusive Islamic government" and promised no retaliatory action and "guarantee women's rights under the Shariah system."
However, Reuters also mentioned that Carter's words were questioned by some British veterans. Charlie Herbert, a former British Army major general who served in Afghanistan and was a senior NATO adviser, told the media: "People should not be fooled by these oily slippery tones."
Herbert said the current Taliban regime desperately needed international recognition, so they were bound to do what (as Carter said). But "they're just waiting for us to leave Kabul and then the bloodshed is about to begin when no journalists and international people can see it." ”
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