A Ray of Hope for Afghanistan

The se­curity sit­uation in Af­gha­nistan has changed sig­ni­fi­cantly over the last few years. The reasons for this are the per­sistent re­sis­tance of the Taliban and the emer­gence of the Islamic State (IS) in different parts of the country. The failure of the Afghan govern­ment and the inter­national com­munity to bring peace and the rise of IS have sig­ni­fi­cantly in­creased the con­cerns of the re­gional players (Russia, Iran and Pakistan) re­garding their own security. Suddenly they find them­selves on the same side, countering IS and exerting pressure on the Taliban as well as on the Afghan govern­ment to­wards a peace­ful settle­ment of the Afghan conflict. And it seems that they are ready to play an asser­tive role. This PRIF Spotlight attempts to ana­lyze the post-IS security situation in Afghanistan and to make sugg­estions for the pros­pects of peace talks amidst the evolving policy shift of neigh­boring countries.