299 : The Eid Ceasefire in Afghanistan: A Harbinger of Longer-term Peace?
Rani D Mullen and Roshni Kapur
11 July 2018
The Afghan government, the Taliban, the United States and the international forces in
Afghanistan announced an unprecedented ceasefire over the three days of Eid in June 2018.
The ceasefire built on an offer of unconditional peace talks by Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani in February 2018, a condemnation of terrorism by international and Afghan religious
scholars and clerics, and a ceasefire announcement by the Afghan government to celebrate
Eid and the end of Ramadan. Scenes of Taliban and Afghan soldiers posing together
abounded on the internet during the ceasefire. While the Taliban and the government have
since ended the ceasefire and fighting has resumed and ramped up, this paper argues that it
will be difficult to put the genie back into the bottle. There are already signs that the
fundamentals of interaction between the Taliban and the government have changed.