Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Gorbachev's flourish did the trick. The next day Diego Cordovez, the United Nations mediator in the Afghan talks, announced that representatives from Pakistan and the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan, the two formal parties to the talks, would sit down again in Geneva on March 2. Said the U.N. diplomat: "The gap ((on the time span)) has been closed to a point where I think a specific agreement at Geneva is clearly foreseeable." U.S. officials were also pleased. Said a senior Reagan official: "The move shows a boldness on the part of Gorbachev. If the Soviets withdraw, it will...
Nonetheless, the Kremlin's willingness to deal at all reflects deep frustration with its eight-year misadventure in Afghanistan. In a recent poll of Muscovites by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and the French polling organization IPSOS, 53% of respondents favored total withdrawal. Even worse, Najib has failed to gain significant support despite launching a "national reconciliation" effort in which the burly leader disavowed Communism and offered bribes to win supporters. The war, meanwhile, is going disastrously for the Soviets. Says Alex Alexiev, a senior analyst at the Rand Corp. "They are at their wits...
Today the mujahedin have all but rid the skies of Mi-24s and MiG and Sukhoi jet fighter-bombers. Last week TIME's Robert Schultheis visited Jaji, an area in eastern Afghanistan where helicopter ambushes once forced the rebels to live like hunted hares. Resistance trucks now move through the area in daylight, and the guerrillas have built a rudimentary hospital. "When we were weak," says Commander Anwar, a local leader, "the Soviets didn't want to talk at all. They are only talking now because we are strong...
Some U.S. analysts believe that Washington is going too easy on Moscow. The Geneva talks, which the U.S. endorses, do not cover key issues like continued Soviet military aid to the Kabul regime that leave the door open for Moscow to exercise considerable influence in Afghanistan after withdrawal. In fact, in talks with the Soviets, the State Department has appeared willing to make concessions -- for instance, countenancing an Afghan-Soviet defense pact -- so long as the Soviets remove their troops. "It is high time," says Analyst Alexiev, "for the Administration to realize that the only way to stop the bloodshed...
...issue most likely to undermine the Geneva talks is the question of who will sign the peace agreement for Afghanistan. Six weeks ago Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze announced that Moscow would accept any neutral Kabul regime, even without a Communist element, and Gorbachev last week claimed that who governs Afghanistan is "none of our business...