Arabic → English transcript

Autumn 2018 A meeting brought together the leadership of the Taliban

negotiating delegation,

headed by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar,

with the negotiating delegation representing the United States of America,

headed by Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad,

and with Qatari mediators present at the highest level.

The commander of joint forces in Afghanistan, General Austin Miller,

began addressing the Taliban delegation, threatening them

with destruction unless the movement accepted the agreement offered to it.

Mullah Baradar closed the file in front of him,

saying that his movement had fought the Americans for years and was ready

to fight for ten more years, and had not come to sign a document of defeat.

He asked to speak.

General Miller

spoke in a way that meant

he was addressing the Afghans: You have to

accept the agreement that we are telling you about like this,

I mean he was dictating to them, kind of in this way, or we

will come back, meaning

we will destroy you and bomb you and so on.

Mullah Baradar closed— he had a file open, he wanted to talk about it, he closed the

file and said:

We have fought you all these years. We have no problem fighting you for another ten

years See you in ten years, maybe in this hall Or maybe in another hall,

I mean, that was

how the words were conveyed

to the general, that we had no problem continuing the fighting, so I got up,

grabbed the file, and told him, no Sit down, let us listen, and indeed

given the relationship that

we had between us

the meeting continued, but it

was mostly marked by tension