Could the rivalry between afghanistans leaders the rail peace efforts ashraf ghani and Abdullah Abdullah both say they are the president with peace with the taliban on the line can they settle their differences this is inside story. Hello there is many were hailing a new beginning for afghanistan less than a fortnight ago the u. S. And the Afghan Taliban had just signed a deal towards ending 2 decades of war but the Afghan Government wasnt part of the talks and a long standing political rivalry is making things even more complicated president ashraf ghani was narrowly declared the winner of the election in september for a 2nd term former chief executive Abdullah Abdullah rejects the result both held rival president ial inauguration ceremonies on monday after the u. S. Special envoy to afghanistan failed to resolve the dispute gone he is supposed to finalize the Governments Team for the 1st direct negotiations with the taliban the us though is started withdrawing troops as part of the deal with the taliban Hoda Abdelhamid has more from the Afghan Capital kabul. This initial pullout is in accordance with the doha agreement with stated that the withdrawal should start within 10 days of signing that agreement now we know that soldiers have been pulled out from bases one in the Helmand Province which is a stronghold of the taliban and the 2nd from a base in the north in the hair right province we dont know the exact number but we do know that over the next 125 days this will draw continue to bring down the overall level of foreign troops in the country to 8600. 00 which is actually the level of troops that was in afghanistan during the Obama Administration now 3rd and after that the u. S. Will have to assess whether the taliban have actually held their part of the deal they have also certain commitments they have to respect like one of them is to deserve our groups like al qaeda cut all ties with them there are many other. Armed groups operating in the country and the taliban has to cut ties with all of them another precondition is also to engage an intra afghan talks that could be pave the way for a political settlement for the conflict in this country at the moment is proving to be a very difficult there is a dispute between the taliban and the Afghan Government over the release of prisoners that is actually also guaranteed by the agreement anyway after these 125. 00 days the u. S. Should continue to pull out of everything goes according to plan and in every city every single foreign soldiers should be out of the country within 14 months that said the u. S. Also said that it will continue its Counterterrorism Operations when needed and it will also continue to support the Afghan Security forces hold up to have a need for inside story. Well lets bring in our guests to discuss this further in washington d. C. Sheffield come down are former advisor to president garny and here with me in london who mom who is the c. E. O. Of afghan Action Committee start with you zainab we have deadlock 2 president s how serious is the situation well 1st lets say that now 2 president s have both inaugurated theyre off the Afghan People and in the presence of the International Forces i would like to personally congratulate them both and yes amidst the all the. Bigger it is thats happening in afghanistan it is tough its a challenge for both people of people in afghanistan to kind of maybe learn more to be patient and see the next steps and also for both leaders to hopefully Work Together putting their differences aside and work for ph a future of a positive afghanistan Work Together you say freak having 2 rival president s is a big problem lets take us back if you can to yet another disputed election in afghanistan this is the 3rd election who in your view have you looked at this actually really warm and was it a clean election. Unfortunately it was not clean election there are a few reasons theres not an exact number of the afghan population but according to summation its between 32 to 35000000 people and out of that almost half of them are legible to vote and from that half of the population nearly 10000000 people has registered to vote and out of nearly 10000000 people then the board has counted is listing 2000000 of course prison gani based on that votes received 50 per cent of the water 50 plus one. Doctor of the lab the labs received somewhere around 40 percent but if you look at the balance of if you calculate the voice princeton ghani with all of those that he has been claiming far has received less than 2. 7 percent of the populations vote so the election was rigged the process where the edge of the election process was challenged are the candidates except ashraf ghani who was in the power and then of course the process didnt go through very well the European Observation Mission was not there truly this time and the Election Campaign commission has kind of say theyre behind the scene and then the result was announced which was contested by up the lab the law and you know let me let me ask you that you gave us the results which i think were president ghani 50. 6 for. Dr or president abdullah whatever your view on this 39. 5 percent but its its key one of the key things is that under the results announced by the Afghan Electoral Commission is the fact that the gani result was just 50 percent because 50 percent was the threshold for having a 2nd round and you just have to look back at the last president ial election in 2014 and things change rapidly did they not between the 1st and 2nd route. Yes but lets not forget the main point for dispute. That less than 2000000. 00 voids nearly 300000 of the woods were rejected it was not legitimate and everybody has agreed on that except the president at the time present gandhi and the Election Complain Commission who did not value the 300000. 00 votes which was not part of the biometric vote so if you did that that was me the doctor of the large dr ghani will complete the koran but lets also not forget for the election its transparency its the elections. Acceptance says results acceptance by all party as well as inclusiveness unfortunately the election even was not inclusive as i have mentioned before adam was present guy me with all the rage toward or the unclean void that he has he has 2. 7 percent of the populations support behind him and around 97 percent of the population is not supporting him so there is no legitimacy especially when we have as a few yesterday 2 parallel government in a distance of several feet so that puts an end to legitimately of the government for board for that of the law and dr gamey in eyes of the Afghan People and what were seeing zainab is history repeating itself yes there was one election where president cause i would clean the elected but since weve had disputed elections weve had 3 disputed elections now and they all have involved dr abdullah as the man who was not pronounced president certainly by the International Community and what weve seen again the 1st time we had john sorry carry the u. S. Secretary of state persuading dr abdul to stand aside the 2nd time he did a deal to make dr abdul of the chief executive a position that doesnt even exist in the concert. You know once again im not an afghan election in recent hours you have the us conducting negotiations with 2 candidates thats not really a very good achievement for afghan democracy but the us ends up deciding everything unfortunately does was a shock not just to. Have to probably to the government themselves i mean i wouldnt be speaking on behalf of the the rest of the government but. I enjoy your and also on behalf of the people of afghanistan this was a 3rd of the 3rd shock for us that overnight a decision has had to be made a search but the thing is that we keep saying that the yes the history repeats lets for sake of the people and for the sake of the past 40 years of war that has happened not make sure that this does not repeat and then Work Together after all regardless of the what the numbers were what the percentage of the people who voted was is that both. President s now if i could say they have been elected by their people yes we do i do agree with our friend and there that. There are people but this was not transparent and that people have got this is the Afghan Peoples entitle meant to know their and do and for the government to be transparent with them with a clear result of election however having said that all of that could have been thought in advance and this could have been a stop yesterday if that was the willing of the allies and the government lets not go back and lets look forward because theres this war has to stop and a people afghanistan are dying for peace so lets look for a rather positive future 2 president s but its pretty clear where the u. S. And the International Community stand let me show you the statement from the u. S. Secretary of state mike palm pyro we welcome president gandhis statement it is inauguration about the discussions over the next 2 weeks to form an inclusive government we also welcome prison. His announcement that he will issue a decree on taliban prisoner release and the National Team for interim afghan negotiations and we appreciate dr a statement scoring similar commitments shafik i think thats interesting because the u. S. Has been negotiating between these 2 men but theyre also trying to sell their deal with the taliban in the main Sticking Point until now between the u. S. Government and president ghani was on releasing these prisoners he didnt want to do it and now hes agreed to do it yeah i think he was holding that decision because he primarily wanted to pressure the United States to support his integration and to come up with such a statement and if you complete the statement you need their end of the state member statement also says that the United States. And of any part of the government in afghanistan so he has the world. To come i mean drudge and let me just say again because the let me just interrupt you because not everyone will know that is zalmay ho yours that its an afghan name is actually an american he was born in kabul but he is an american hes was the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations he was the u. S. Ambassador in iraq in afghanistan and now under President Trump hes the special envoy and hes the man who on behalf of the trumpet ministrations been doing this deal yes. Exactly thank you for that clarification but let me also add Something Else he is also besides this representation of the United States he is kind of a defacto leader in afghanistan as well because he is the one who is breaking deals between president between doctor of the law between the taliban so his title is not on his terms of reference is only not limited to his negotiation with taliban people see him even president ghani himself hes seen term as a defacto leader in afghanistan and a Decision Maker thats why he enter faired or involved in the negotiations between up the line and granny but he has failed i would say because dr henry and dr khaled that theyre Close Friends and they grew up together theyre bored scholars in the u. S. They know each other cause the i think in this case gamey has influenced significantly. To favor him but i strongly believe thats a trap and strict because probably we will in the near future we will see that you will resist farther and will request more you have high demands for the us to compromise and any step for the u. S. To take father for the peace and the consolation will come with a very high price tag for the United States to deal with danny as well as with abdullah so your view on that clearly you can see it the way shafiq sees it as one this round and got the u. S. On side but danny is going to have to we assume sit down and send a delegation to talk to the taliban and if hes going to release all the prisoners 1st hes lost one of his main cards one of his main points of leverage. Of much of the have to agree with some of the things of a dig our studio. And i have a nice a deal in that however as these have just happened so i do not have a deeper in if the information on that to convey here with regards to. Commit to addressing your question id like to come back to did the Peace Agreement itself 1st i think we should not forget that the majority of the Peace Agreement the conditions that were that have been signed of course they are in behalf of the us and the taliban representatives its mostly in the advantages of the usa and not so much. I think one clause that the afghans the Afghan Government that could utilize and the benefit of the Afghan People as the. Negotiation and the enter government conversation that that hopefully to happen and take place between the afghanistans and hoping for the peace deal aside from that the rest of the p. C. That has been signed as i said before is mostly india advantage of us and their interests rather than the Afghan People and this is the peace deal that you talk about as i buy a copy of it here box we learned that there are secret amec says in this deal that the Afghan People have not been shown whats interesting is comments that have come out from a prominent u. S. Senator recently whos a member of the Armed Services sorry of the of the Foreign Relations committee senator chris murphy has been tweeting saying the more i learn the more concerned i become that trump got fleeced the taliban security guarantees are so vague as to be effectively void he says the agreement leaves the Afghan Government out to dry by scheduling troop withdrawals before a taliban afghan vehicle in the race to get a deal took the focus of the current political crisis in afghanistan shafiq you hear comments like that from a prominent senator ive seen a New York Times op ed from susan rice the former National Security advisor she seems to think this was a particularly good deal do you share their concerns. I would say i can echo some of the concerns because the deal so far has been compromising so many fundamental achievement of the Afghan GovernmentAfghan People and the United States together for example the human rights the woman rights these are the values that the have Afghan People and the International Community has sacrificed thousands of people and millions have been invested in that but in this deal you were not find even a word of human rights human even a word of ones right even in the entire delegation of taliban or the u. S. You want to see you couldnt see a one member presenting their talking about their rights so there are some concerns and i do see that theres not a lot of implementation and verification guarantee and mechanism in the deal other than these 2 secret annex is which probably is more and detail how the troops are going to draft how the counterterrorism will operate in afghanistan and how the u. S. And taliban relationship look like in the future not pretty much about democracy human rights human rights and other valuable i would say or devalue is for the Afghan People and those who have sacrificed their lives in afghanistan. I know that as well as being a former deputy Senior Adviser to president johnny you also for quite a long time were an advisor to nato to the senior civilian representative so let me talk to you about the troop withdrawals specifically and what it says in the deal about that because theres a very force timeline for the troops to leave i believe its going down very quickly in just less than 5 months to the figure that were there when President Trump 1st took office 8600 from 12000 and we hear the nato troops the are from other countries are going down currently my calculations that never make these figures public is there are about 20000. 00 u. S. And nato troops in total its very fast isnt it and does not does the worry about the security of the government in kabul. So the initial step which is drawdown of the u. S. Troops from around 12600. 00 something to 8600. 00 that is something feasible but for the rest of the u. S. Troops to withdraw within this short timeline i think its not feasible as well as its very high risk and threat its not only trade for the u. S. Troops to withdraw but also for the other countries troops because we do have the resilient support mission led by me to where we need to members as well as other. Partner seat in afghanistan and they also have more than 8000 troops in afghanistan so for them also they will need a safe passage and a plan to address from afghanistan where they see in the current deal that has not been right