Good afternoon and welcome to our webinar on health and medical data, storing and publishing health and medical data. I'm Kate LeMay and I'm a senior research data specialist from the Australian National Data Service and I've got with me Jeff Christensen from QCIF. So there are probably some people here who are new to AN. So I just wanted to introduce us. We're a federally funded body and we work to make Australia's research data assets more valuable for researchers, research institutions in the nation through various means around data management and data sharing. So as I said today's webinar will be about storing and publishing health and medical data. It's part of a series. Last week was our first one on Funders and Publishers and the recording of that is available on the ANS website in the presentation section already. Next week we'll be talking about ethics and legal issues around data sharing and as I said I've got Jeff Christensen joining me from QCIF and he's the Program Manager for Health and Life Sciences at QCIF and the University of Queensland's Research Computing Centre. He's been involved in the development of many national research IT infrastructure projects with a biomedical focus within Australia including med.data which he'll be speaking to us about. And prior to this he was based in the UK where he led a team who developed and maintained an international reference resource of embryo anatomy and associated gene expression patterns. So Jeff will be speaking to us in a little while. So firstly I'd like to talk to you about data repositories in general and some things to think about when planning to submit data to a repository. So when we're talking about a repository we're not talking about just putting a file on Google Drive and making it shareable to other people. It's a managed environment capable of storing and sharing data and usually has some process for curating and preserving data as well. So there's quite a few different choices that people have when looking at what repository to use for their data. So institutions and by institutions I mean in general universities most institutions have a repository that may be able to either have the data set plus metadata about it or just the metadata available. Now when I say metadata what I mean is the description of a data set. So that's things like who made it, when was it made, what's it about in general and any information, extra information that a secondary user might need to know about that data set. An advantage of having data in an institutional repository is that in general they're free and in Australia institutional repositories feed their metadata to a site that is owned by ANS called Research Shutter Australia which I'll show you in a little bit and Research Shutter Australia as I said collects this information, this metadata about the data sets and provides a central point for people to go to to look for data sets within Australia. So there's also discipline specific repositories and the Australian Data Archive is an example of one of these. The Australian Data Archive is in general social science specific but does have some medical and health data sets in there. It's a really great example of a repository that provides mediated access which is a concept I'll touch on next in my next slide and Re3Data is a registry which I will also show you after this slide set and it's a registry of discipline repositories so you can go there and search for your discipline to see if there's a repository that's specific to your research. So there's also non-specific repositories and it's some examples here are FigShare and Dryad. These repositories don't have specific types of data in there they're quite general and they can in the case of FigShare they can hold things other than data like papers, presentations, posters, other things like that great literature. So some of the things that a researcher might want to think about when they're looking at which repository they want to deposit their data into are if they're being mandated or recommended a repository from say a funder or a journal that they're publishing in and I would suggest in this case to check if it is a mandate or just a recommendation and to look into whether you're actually required to put it there. An example is if you look at last week's webinar Wiley was speaking about that they have a deal with FigShare when you deposit data you can deposit data into FigShare when you're putting a paper into a Wiley journal but they're not mandating that so they're repository agnostic. There are also discipline conventions so an example of this is Genomics says quite well established discipline conventions in that area. Also some considerations might be if you're going to be able to publish the metadata and the data in the same place. So as I said some institutional repositories have at this point the capacity for publishing metadata but maybe not holding the data and then where will you put that data what we do about that. Some repositories have no cost and some do have a cost so that's a consideration when you're looking at your choices. This concept of mediated access that I mentioned when I was talking about the Australian data archive this means that you can have the description the metadata of your data available publicly it's findable it's searchable it's referenceable but the data itself is not available for public download. So in this case the access is mediated through some sort of means so that only say a legitimate researcher with a research question that can be answered by use of your data set is able to access this data. This can be done at a repository level with somewhere like the Australian data archive it can be done at a researcher level so I'll show you an example on research data Australia of a research data set that has mediated access through the researcher and another thing to consider is whether that repository allocates DOIs to data sets so most people would be familiar with DOIs digital object identifiers from papers being assigned them. If data set is allocated a DOI it can be cited in a reference list and that citation can be tracked in the same way as DOI citations are tracked for papers so that's an advantage for the researcher if that is assigned to your data set. So I'd like to show you now a few websites that I mentioned so one of this was research data Australia you can come here and you can search for data sets you can also browse by subjects so that's worth having a look at. Here is the example of a medical and health related data set on research data Australia that has mediated access under this access conditions on the left hand side it says to contact them to gain access to that data set so it's good all the metadata that I was discussing earlier but that access is through the researcher and the secondary user would have to also have ethical approval for getting that data set and this is re3data.org if you go to browse by subject it's got this really fun well I think it's fun graphic where you can look into subjects so here if we click on medicine that's the fun bit it pops up and you can look further into it to see if there's a repository that is related to your discipline. So now I'm going to hand over to Jeff and he's going to speak to us about med.data. Thanks very much for the invitation Kate it's a pleasure to be able to talk to the group today what I'm going to talk about is infrastructure project called med.data.edu.edu which we sometimes call med.data just to shorten and this is a cloud-based data storage computing and sharing system for health and medical researchers in Australia. So last week at the Ann's webinar we heard from Whimming Boon and he reminded me about putting things in the context of the research lifecycle and this is an image of the research lifecycle from the NHMRC statement on data sharing and this covers everything from at the beginning I guess supplying for funding and ethics approval and then commencing research, undertaking research and then disseminating the results and what is apparent I guess these days and in particular since data a lot of data has been born digital is that data is and digital data is central to this lifecycle. So when one is attempting I guess to wrangle all of these data resources there's a number of items of infrastructure that you need in place so when one is collecting data we obviously need to store it somewhere and that may be on a shared system it may be on laptop it may be in various places. Also when we store it we need to manage it so we need to organize it so this is putting it into directories that mean something and also attaching metadata so information about the data to make it useful and I guess there's two levels of metadata which can be thought of and one is a collection level so this particular data set or folder over here contains information associated with research project X the other is that you can attach metadata to items within the actual data repository that you have so for instance you could say well this is a file and that file is associated with a person that has various characteristics. The other aspect of management that's worth thinking about is sharing it with collaborators during the life during the life cycle so those collaborators may be people within your own lab or they may be within the same institution but they could very well be international based internationally so having a system that allows you to easily manage and share data is really central to undertaking research. Obviously data by itself is not particularly useful unless it's subjected to some kind of analysis so there's a plethora of analysis tools that one can apply to data they might be commercial they might be open source and analysis tools all need compute power to be able to run so again this computing power may be offered through something like a desktop machine or a laptop institutions may offer computational resources there are cloud providers I'll talk a little bit about a national research cloud here in Australia that's come about through the Nectar project and then there's also high performance computing facilities so these are really for doing number crunching on very large data sets or on data sets that require a lot of computation in a parallel fashion and then once the analysis has been done and the the results have been gleaned it's important to be able to disseminate the results and Kate was just talking about a number of great repositories that I guess such as Dryad and Figshell which are really really useful as data repositories to disseminate results and data associated with results from a research project so this webinar is about health and medical related topic and so what's so special about health and medical research data so primarily because it's health and medical it includes a proportion of data that is derived from or is directly related to human beings that have participated in research within those within those data single human being beings may also be individually identifiable I'll just point out that the term individually identifiable is used in the national MA the NH and MRC national statement on ethical conduct in human research and it defines three levels of identifiability one of which is individually identifiable so single human beings may actually be individually identifiable in a proportion of data associated with a research project to some people within that research corporation so if the data is individually identifiable and it also contains information about a person's health or their genetic information or any biometric information it's also considered to be sensitive and that's defined by the Privacy Act the Commonwealth Privacy Act and if data is sensitive it carries legal and ethical responsibilities in ensuring that the information is not intentionally or inadvertently disclosed to non-authorized individuals so when conducting research effectively everybody has a shared ethical everybody related to that research has a shared ethical responsibility to ensure that harm doesn't come to any research participant through unauthorized release of identifiable data so that may be non-intentionally someone might accidentally give access to someone or give access to someone and then they shouldn't have done that and then so there's issues there or the other one is through things like hacking of systems and various things like that which I guess is fairly topical at the moment so when one is considering using health and medical research data especially if that data is going to be identifiable a process of risk management is required so you know we have to be able to store that information and use it and share it with collaborators but it's imperative that that is done in a suitably safe manner. Med.data is effectively data infrastructure operate a data infrastructure and as operators of data infrastructure we have a duty to data custodians of a particular data set and also researchers using that data set to demonstrate that we have appropriate levels of maturity and discipline and information security practice to be able to store human derived research data and we also have to have a repertoire of safeguards in place to show custodians of the security of the information that's held on systems like this so they may be administrative so for instance policies they may be physical so do we use appropriate appropriately secure data centers and then there's also a plethora of technical safeguards that one can apply to data infrastructure in this space. So what is Med.data? So effectively when nationally funded data infrastructure for health and medical research data we've received an increase so that's national collaborative research infrastructure scheme funding through two projects the RDSI which was a research data storage infrastructure and the research data services projects so interestingly on the NH and MRC statement on data sharing this is alluded to so Kate mentioned a little bit of the infrastructure within this may be provided from an institution also dried that gets a mention there but there's also established established networks and projects across the country that have been nationally funded including research data storage infrastructure. I should point out intersect we're going to mention in a minute as one has another organization that's mentioned in the NH and MRC statement on data sharing so as data infrastructure we provide a number of features so one is cloud storage for health and medical research data so this is I guess set in a number of data centers around the country and I'll talk to that it's networks over the internet high-speed research network backbone we have data management tools that can be associated with the data storage so media flux and mitardus excellent tools that provide data structuring and also attachment of metadata to particular items within collections and also some other features such as encryption and as Farrah is a tool for high speed transfer and also very good structuring data into directories and also has really good encryption capabilities associated with the storage and management is compute resources and analysis tools so with metadata we rely on computing that sits behind the data storage or is associated with that storage some of this is maybe cloud so I mentioned a little bit about the next research class this is another interest funded project to provide cloud compute a cloud research cloud for Australian researchers and there's also a number of high-performance computing or parallel computing systems that are highly associated with this particular data set analysis tools primarily with met of data the use of the use of the storage have been bringing their own software so it may be as I said it may be a commercial product or it may be a open source product but that software is run on the compute that's associated with the data storage and then dissemination of results and data access is really important so we also have a data registry that's closely coupled with the data storage and this actually leverages research data Australia which which Kate just mentioned so we have a widget built into our website which can present information that's described in in research data Australia on this particular site and that's for data that's stored on this infrastructure we also have a resource library which I think is proved to be very popular so I think a lot of people in this space are fairly confused by what is the legislative and the best practice landscape when dealing with health and medical research data that's derived from humans so we have a resource library there and I think next week's topic will also touch on that and we also talk about IT security frameworks that may be that are suitable for I guess describing the security features of data infrastructure and I'll talk a little bit in a minute about the Australian Signals Directorate Information Security Manual and something else that has also proved very popular is we just have an interactive use guide so this is really to find out if you're thinking about using met data is it going to be right for your data so it's interactive it leads through a decision tree so there's up to eight questions and it can be very useful for finding out information in a directed fashion so who manages met data so the project is actually led by intersect and intersect QCIP and big note of the three primary partners in this particular project and also has been involved in preliminary stages of this project as well so collectively I should say that QCIP intersect and big note are organizations that are so we're research organizations and we have member universities so together that we have 23 universities and what we do is we work with IT infrastructure groups and others of those at those institutions to to provide value to those particular institutions so there are a lot of universities affiliated through this particular groupings so who is using met data and prior to answering that I guess I should say who can use it and effectively anyone can use it in Australia so you feel free to contact us and I'll give you some how to do that at the end but who is using it now so we have about 2.6 petabytes of data stored just to give you some context that it costs about 600,000 DVDs or I think about 8 million CDs so it's a lot of data primarily it's I guess can be classified that the vast majority is human derived genomics data and then human derived imaging data and then a much smaller proportion of information that's collected from biosensing biosensor experiments or data derived from bios specimens or from epidemiological observational simulation studies and again if we look at the number of data sets per type again genomics we definitely have the largest amount who is using it we currently have research group from 20 organizations so not all of these organizations are members of the three of QCIP intersect and Vic node as I mentioned before so we have researchers from six universities and including I guess fairly independent research centers within those universities nine medical research institutes and also other organizations including hospital-based research groups so I just want to say a little bit here now about identifiable versus non-identifiable data so at the moment the majority of the six petabytes data is classified as reidentifiable or non-identifiable again these are classifications that are used in the statement of ethical conduct in human research. Reidentifiable is where a temporary identifier has been attached to information that has been anonymized so this may have a classifier so an alpha numerical number actually identifies the participant within the study that can't be traced back to actually reveal the identity of that person and then non-identifiable data is data that's never had any kind of identifying information attached. I guess the reason why most of this is currently a reidentifiable or non-identifiable is that a lot of the researchers that are using mental data are actually given access to data sets that have already been de-identified by third parties. However we can still actually store identifiable individually identifiable data however prior to doing that we urge that we have a discussion about risk management so this is really important that the data custodian of that data set and the infrastructure providers have this conversation so we need to understand collectively what's the sensitivity level of this data but it's also really important to understand from it as an infrastructure provider use cases of how this data may be used so how will it be used would it be used on a HPC system or would it be used would a cloud a virtual machine in the cloud environment be sufficient. It's also really important to understand where are the users are they based within a university or maybe they're based in a medical research institute or maybe they're based overseas so it's also really important for us to be able to understand that to have a better idea of how the data can be housed and protected and also by who. So again I roll the people within one research group or are they across others so this as I said dictates the specifics of the IT security setup. So I should just say that the security policies are actually set by each known operator and we're very very happy to discuss with data custodians and and particularly the as well the institutional IT security officers albury searches or data custodians as to the setup of our particular infrastructure. So we can provide sort of a comparison of how we shore up against the Australian Signals Directorate Information Security Manual principles and controls and I should just say that these are effectively the Australian standards for information security. So if you'd like to know more we have a couple of methods so you can contact us there's a contact page on the website and as I said before that there's an interactive use guide. I should just say before closing off that to thank the funders so it was NCRIS funded this project primarily through RDS and RDSI. Thank you. Fabulous thank you so much Jeff for talking about med.data. I've just received one little question most of the ethics committees requiring full ethics for data sharing or LNR. This is a good question we will be talking about ethics next week so ethics committees can vary in their attitudes to data sharing. This is a new concept that some ethics committees are coming up against. We have a guide available on our website for ethics committees as a bit of an introduction to data sharing so if there are any ethics committees members or you know anyone who's in an ethics committee please feel free to point that out to them. But in general if information is identifiable you definitely have to have the consent of the participants to be able to share data. If the data is non-identifiable it doesn't fall under the Privacy Act and can be shared. However there are other aspects that ethics committees may consider so it's a bit of a it depends and so Jeff do you have anything to add to that? Oh no I was just going to say that there are I guess quite a lot of data questions in the new Human Research Ethics application form and one thing we're considering doing is actually providing some further I guess advice on our site about how one can respond to that question if they're considering using metadata. Someone has also asked for more details on how this stacks up to the principles and controls from the government ISM and we're after more details on how we can access this. I believe that this is one of those questions that Jeff they would need to contact their local. Yeah we would have an individual conversation because by actually disclosing your security setup you're actually it's actually a security risk to do so. So we will have those conversations one by one but we're not going to publish a list on the website saying well we actually adhere to all of these and not all of these. I guess I should just clarify a little bit more about ASD so there's a number of classifications in that document and they range from protected and sensitive which are the classifications we're utilizing for this type of data up to top secret and obviously we're not building a system for top secret information. A lot of it comes back to policies and for us each of the nodes have security policies and information security policies and within that again it's really important that we clarify roles and responsibilities so we effectively provide a secure container for the data and we want the people that are using our systems to effectively use that secure container in a responsible manner so it's definitely a shit thing but please contact us through the website and we can have a discussion about how we stack up against those controls. Yep absolutely and there was just one little last question someone asked about reidentifiable data so when we were talking about non-identifiable and identifiable in that question about ethics. For me reidentifiable data if it's my understanding is if it's separated from the key that can reidentify it then the data set that does not have any of the identifiers in it is shareable but again best always best to get consent. And we also have some advice so we have one of our guys in the resource sections on anonymization and there's actually no Australian specific guidance about how to generate those keys but the US HIPAA Act the Health Insurance Privacy Portability Act has some really good tips I guess on how to generate these types of identifiers and basically it shouldn't be derived from anything that was ever associated with that person. Another HIP that's covered on that page is also and the ASD I think does provide the guidance from memory is that the identifying information should never be stored on the same system as the keys. The keys should be stored somewhere else and also encrypted. Yep absolutely and just one last thing to say about de-identification and also has a guide about de-identification on our website and it points off to a lot of international and national guidance about that process that you can go through and these terms identifiable, reidentifiable and non-identifiable as Jeff said they're in the national statement on ethical conduct in human research and that that statement is currently undergoing review. Who knows how long these government processes take but that quest that those three identifiers, those three terms are currently under the terms of the review so we'll keep our eye on whether they continue being the terms but that's just something to note for the future. So I'd just like to thank Jeff very much for speaking to us about med.data. Thank everyone for coming in today.


Jordan, how's your leg feeling right now? It's fine. It's going to be a little swollen, but I'll be ready in five days. How concerned were you when that happened? I mean, that ball came off the bat extremely quick. Yeah, it just kind of was in a weird spot, and then it caught me right on the bone. So it sounded pretty loud, but got up and walked it off. You first went down.  Did you think at that point that something major had happened, that you'd actually be able to shake that off and come back in? No, it just kind of caught me weird, kind of the shock of it hitting me, and then kind of hit me weird, where I kind of just went down like a tree. So I don't just was weird. Did it affect you on the mound at all after? I mean, I tried not pushing too hard, but just tried to keep us in it and not be out in the first inning.  Started swollen up, but we had it wrapped or something. So are you planning any kind of tests on it or anything at all? I passed all the tests, got an X-ray, so I'm good. Jordan, after the first inning, what did you do between innings to stay in the game? Put heat on it, stayed walking around, bending it. Just kind of stay moving. It's fine. It'll be swollen tomorrow, and I'll walk around and get it out. So with the short and spring training, a lot of the guys are unstretched out. Does your approach change at all when you're going into a game like that? Well, not really. I mean, you would like to get a clean four or five innings. But honestly, I thought I executed and made some good pitches, so I'm happy. I could stay out there and at least get kind of stretched out with the innings.


It's my great pleasure to welcome you today for a timely and critical discussion with Ambassador Zalmeh Khalilzad on Afghanistan's peace process. We invite all of you to take part in today's discussion by asking a question using the chat box function located below the video player on the USIP event page. And you can engage with us and each other on Twitter with today's hashtag, hashtag Afghan peace while one works. We ask that you please include your name and specify where you are joining us from when you ask your question. USIP has been working on Afghanistan since 2002. And in the last several years, our top priority is to facilitate an inclusive and sustainable peace process that can end the conflict in Afghanistan. As many of you are aware, after months of delays and obstacles, on September 12th, the Taliban and the Afghan government began historic peace talks in Doha, Qatar, offering Afghanistan a unique opportunity for peace. While the two sides are engaged, the negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement that would end decades of war, violence continues across Afghanistan. Notwithstanding these challenges, signs of progress in the peace talks are clear and it is important to note that in the last 40 years of conflict, Afghans have never been closer to peace than they are today. USIP is honored that Ambassador Khalilzad, who's since February 2019, has tirelessly engaged with both the Taliban and the Afghan government to bring the two sides to an agreement. Ambassador Khalilzad was appointed as special representative by the Secretary of State in September of 2018. Previously, he served as the permanent representative of the UN and as ambassador to Iraq as well. Following his keynote address, we will have a question and answer session that is moderated by USIP's board chair and the former US national security advisor, Stephen Hadley. During the final 20 minutes of the event, the audience will have an opportunity to take part and ask questions through the chat features I mentioned. And now I would like to hand it over to Ambassador Khalilzad. The floor is yours. Good morning. Thank you, Scott. I would like to start by thanking Steve Hadley, the chair of the board of USIP and the staff and associates of USIP for the work that the institute does and for the support that the institute has provided to me and to my team during the past almost two years. So thank you for that. I'm delighted to be here to discuss the peace process in Afghanistan. I briefed yesterday in the US Congress on Afghanistan. As I told the Hill, when I was appointed, I was given the mandate to find a diplomatic solution that brings an end to America's longest war, reduces the burden on the US military and US taxpayers, provides the best chance for a sovereign, unified and representative Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbors and respectful of the human rights of all its citizens and ensures terrorists can never again use Afghan soil to threaten the security of the United States and our allies. My mandate was and remains based on the assumption that there is no viable path to military victory in Afghanistan. Based on that assumption, we engage the Taliban and the Afghan government in parallel. In February 2020, we agreed on two important documents, the US Afghanistan Joint Declaration and the US Taliban agreement. Our way forward expressed in those two documents is a four part package interrelated. A set of assurances by the Taliban and the Afghan government that neither will allow any group or individual to use their territory to threaten the security of the United States and its allies. A condition based timeline for withdrawal of American and coalition forces. Those are the first two conditions or parts. We are continuously engaging with the Taliban to oversee the implementation of these two aspects and to handle any related issues of concern. As part of our bilateral relationship with the Afghan government, we do the same with regard to ensuring Afghanistan is not used by the terrorists to attack the United States or our allies and to plan for our smooth departure and for the ongoing training and assistance to the Afghan forces. I can tell you that since the signing of the agreement, the Taliban have in fact instructed their forces to refrain from attacks on US or coalition forces. There have been no American death on the battlefield due to Taliban attacks since the agreement was signed. Now the second part, the second two parts of the agreement and the joint declaration are about the commitment the Taliban and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan have made to engage each other, to sit together and start real negotiations and come to a political settlement that promises lasting peace. It goes without saying that is an important indeed, determinative opportunity for Afghanistan. This current stage is the heart of the Afghan peace process. It's important to be fully aware of the significance of this moment and to recognize its historic relevance. What we agreed to in the first two parts and are currently implementing has opened the door to the two sides sitting together to correct history after 40 years. The US Taliban agreement and the joint declaration that was the prologue. We are now truly at the start of the book that the two sides of this too long, too costly conflict need to write. The negotiations require true, courageous and sincere Afghan to Afghan reconciliation. This key step puts agency with the Afghans, which is the only way for it to succeed. The parties must now fully commit to brokering a political settlement that can close a 40-year chapter of death and despair. It will not be easy. Afghanistan is diverse and complicated. There are old elites, new elites, would-be elites, religious leaders, urban leaders, rural leaders. There are tribes and their ethnicities and religious sects. There are different visions in regards to a preferred political and economic system and the rights and correct relations between genders. It is an encouraging signal that women as well as men are at the table, representing the diversity of Afghanistan. And this was not an issue of contention. Every one of the table shares a common history. Now they need to understand that their only path into the future must also be a common one. So far, the signs are positive. Both sides requested that only they sit together with no international mediation. The first stage of the negotiation also showed more progress than many expected. The parties met and began building relationships and establishing the rules. There is no guarantee that the Afghans will capitalize on their opportunity. There are challenges, mistrust and grievances are deep rooted. There are spoilers who would prefer not to see reconciliation succeed, who are comfortable with and who benefit from the status quo and the ongoing conflict. Some of them have expended a great deal of energy and have spread a lot of disinformation in an attempt to obstruct the peace process. That's why it falls upon the international community and the Afghan people to put the spotlight on Afghanistan and urge the negotiators to understand that the whole world is watching them as well as the Afghan people. And that their own citizens are watching, as I said before, with hope and anxiety and will judge them. As we know from past history, Afghanistan too often has become a proxy for dual political maneuvering. Therefore, on the regional international front, we started building consensus in support of the peace process. And with the exception of Iran, every relevant stakeholder country and institution supported our first two documents, the agreement and the joint declaration. Pakistan, India, all Central Asian countries, Russia, China, Indonesia, every nation in the EU, the UK, the UN and NATO and more. Moving forward, we will focus on maintaining this momentum and encouraging this level of international support. Already many countries have offered their support and help. The official opening of peace negotiations between Afghans attended as it was by so many diplomats from a broad range of countries showed that the international community cares about Afghanistan and its future. Successful peace talks are the precondition to their continued and perhaps strengthened commitment to Afghanistan, something the negotiating teams are clearly aware of. All parties have engaged, all parties have agreed that the Afghan peace negotiation must result in a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. This is unsurprising, the Afghan population is tired of a war that kills and wounds civilian every day. In addition to the toll on the Afghan security forces and on the Taliban, we know that the reduction in violence is possible. The Taliban and the Afghan government carried out to eat ceasefires this year. We expect the negotiations will soon lead to a significant reduction in violence by all sides, reducing the number of Afghans getting killed or wounded. This will help build the trust necessary for talks to succeed. We will continue to press for this reduction of violence. One key goal of the United States continues to represent is to promote universal values and Afghanistan's development. We will work with our international partners to continue to press on the rights of women and of religious and ethnic minorities. We've made it very clear to the negotiating teams while the ultimate political settlements is one for the Afghan themselves to decide, the United States and the international community are deeply committed to human rights and women's rights. The Afghans must negotiate the solution that suits their history and their culture, but we have made it clear we expect the women of Afghanistan to have their voices heard and their views considered. The international community expects the same. The inclusion of women in the negotiation is an important step. We have seen the women of Afghanistan are very capable of standing up for themselves and articulating their views when given the opportunity. I expect they will soon see side events additionally focused on issues important to women and civil society and where they can share their concerns directly with all sides and the negotiations. International support going forward will be tied to choices that Afghanistan makes in regards to contemporary universal values. These include things such as halting corruption and enforcing the rule of law in addition to preserving the rights of women. Successful negotiations and peace agreement when implemented will also open up huge opportunities for economic and social development. Afghanistan, of course, is a poor country, but it is also a country with vast resources, both human and material. Peace and stability are the preconditions to significant economic growth and international investment. And economic growth and investment in turn are essential to preserving the deepening peace, stability, and social development. Peace and stability will have another important benefit for Afghanistan and the region allowing for increased connectivity, trade, and development. As one leader of the region currently recently told me, countries do not develop regions do. The negotiation can, of course, fail, but given what's at stake, the Afghan people and the international community led by the United States expects the negotiations to produce a roadmap for Afghanistan's political future and for a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ambassador. I will now ask a few prepared questions before opening it up to the audience. A reminder to the audience that you can take part in today's discussion by asking a question using the chat box function located just below the video player on the USIP event page. Ambassador, this month, as Scott mentioned, marks the two years since President Trump appointed you as special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation. And since then, you and your team have done what many of us thought would be impossible. First, the agreement with the Taliban in February, laying the groundwork for intra-Afghan talks. And finally, a bit less than two weeks ago, the first face-to-face talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. As we enter this important next phase in the peace process, are you hopeful that the Afghan peace negotiations can actually deliver a sustainable peace for Afghanistan and one that meets American interests as well? And if so, why? Thank you, Steve, for what you said. I very much appreciate it. I am hopeful because of several reasons. First, the cost of not moving forward, the violence and the suffering of the Afghan people and the support, therefore, that reaching an agreement has among the people of Afghanistan, they're yearning for peace and they're expressing it in many ways, including in polls that have been conducted. Two, even the leaders remember the lessons of history that they missed an opportunity for peace after the Soviet departure, which was a historic achievement of the people of Afghanistan supported by the United States. And yet, while the world benefited from the demise of the Soviet Union to which the Afghan struggle contributed, and the Afghans, their leadership at that time and made a mistake, didn't take advantage of the opportunity and started a vicious civil war. They remember that and it weighs on the current leaders that they can't do that again and this is yet another opportunity. There is also a great deal of international support for peace and almost a consensus, international consensus in support of peace and the benefits that will come to Afghanistan in terms of development and connectivity that I mentioned. And so for all those reasons and my own conversations that I'm sure we'll get to with both sides with the Taliban leadership and with the Afghan leadership, it makes me hopeful that peace, they will reach out, compromise, accept each other, find a formula that works for them. For the alternative is more violence that could go on for a long time. And both sides say they understand that. So, well, nothing is guaranteed of course, but I am hopeful and the responsibility is obviously with the leaders of the two sides at this point. Ambassador, I wanna ask you about some of those conversations, particularly with respect to the Taliban. Many here in the United States, as you know, doubt still that the Taliban are committed to a negotiation process. Many believe that the Taliban are using it as a diversion, confident that they can actually achieve military victory. How do you assess the Taliban's commitment to the negotiation process and what evidence do you have that they are sincerely committed to negotiation rather than just waiting out the process, waiting for the United States to leave and then really taking control of the country? I think based on what I see and what I've heard that they are serious about the negotiations. They have sent a very empowered senior team to negotiate. They are prepared for it seriously. And they have said to me, there is no alternative to negotiations for Afghanistan to work. It has to be inclusive that that's the lesson they've learned from the 1990s experience of their own that they, in order for them to be accepted, not only in Afghanistan, but also internationally that they seek to be accepted as a partner, as a normal player. And there has to be a negotiated settlement that a military victory will produce even they use the analogy of Syria, that if there is a significant Afghan group that satisfied some neighbors, one neighbor or another or some other player will provide assistance to that group and that the war will go on. And so based on that and on their performance since we, which is mixed since we made this agreement, but we see their ability and their willingness to deliver their ability to do it, the team that we negotiate with, when they say a ceasefire that's largely as held when they say there will be reduction of violence it has happened. And when they say we want to attack foreigners and I told you the record. So I am again, we're dealing with a complicated situation and we will watch and monitor, but that is, I do believe that they are taking the negotiation very seriously for their own self-interest as well. Let me ask you ambassador about the violence question last Sunday you tweeted that quote, over the last few days there's been a clear rise in violence in Afghanistan. And I'd like to ask you what is the level of violence against Afghan forces and Afghan civilians and what commitments of any were made in the February agreement between the Taliban and the United States? What commitments were made by the Taliban on this issue and as the Taliban following through on those commitments and more generally what can be done to get the violence down particularly violence against Afghan forces and Afghan civilians? I agree that violence is too high and both sides and my judgment as the negotiations between them are starting are using violence as a mean to improve their relative position to shape the negotiations, not surprising. The Taliban said that certain levels or types of activities would not happen after the signing of the agreement. Attacks against major cities, the 34 provincial centers including Kabul, attacks would be reduced against district centers, attacks against major bases of Afghanistan would not happen. And they have largely held to those and in fact if you compare the period the same period and the numbers that I've seen for January 1st to June of last year to this year although this agreement was signed on the 29th you see a reduction in the number of deaths in terms of both Afghan security forces and in terms of civilian lives lost. So they have not tried to take many district centers this year, they have not tried to take provincial capitals but in the rural areas and there is violence there are accusations by each side that the other is responsible for it. We believe that violence needs to be brought down by both sides, I'm in the process of talking to both what that exactly could look like, what each side would or would not do. And I'm hoping that with pressure from the public which is in Afghanistan and the international community and that this will be one of the first issues that we could get progress on but I agree with you that the violence levels is unacceptably high. Thank you, Ambassador. You mentioned that one of the things that gave you hope that for the prospects of reaching a sustainable peace was the support for this effort by regional states. I wanna ask you specifically about Pakistan in particular a lot of concern about the safe haven Pakistan has provided in Pakistan to Taliban forces. How would you assess their current role in support of the peace process and what more would you like to see them do? I assess their role as positive both Prime Minister Emron Khan and General Badra have been supportive of the peace process and we would like to see as an adjunct to the agreement among Afghans and agreement and understanding between the two sides Pakistan and Afghanistan that neither is territory would be used against the other by forces, terrorists or violent groups and there has been there's progress with regard to that as well and our relations with Pakistan as a result has improved the United States Pakistan relations and of course we always are asking for more and more needs to be done but I am appreciative of myself of the support from Prime Minister Khan and General Badra. Thank you. Many of the questions directed at you in your congressional hearing on Tuesday underscored concerns about women's rights being lost in the peace process and you address that in your comments. The Taliban have limited their recognition of women's rights to their interpretation of Sharia and have said recently that the Afghan president should be selected by a religious council that would exclude women. Does the United States in your view have a strategic interest in Afghan women's inclusion in the peace process and in protections of women's rights in any eventual peace agreement and what role should the US be playing during these negotiations recognizing that they're Afghan led and Afghan owned nonetheless what role should the United States play to ensure that the fundamental rights of all Afghans are protected. This is a very important issue for the United States and for the world indeed and for the Afghan people given the record of the Taliban in the 90s and there is legitimate concern about what they would do as part of a future political structure in Afghanistan. The Taliban have their own explanation for some of the draconian measures that they took with regard to women in the 1990s but now they say that the women can be ministers, women can work, women can go to school and but for on our part we have made it clear that our future relations support will be informed what happens on several issues but among the top ones is what happens to the gains that women have made to respect for the rights, the universally accepted rights for women and we encourage the Afghan Islamic Republic, the government to make sure the women are at the table for women able women are at the table negotiating and that as I said, we are considering other steps to highlight the importance of this issue with our friends and allies parallel events perhaps. We are very much committed to it and what they do in this regard will be one of the key issues that will affect the future US assistance and relations with Afghanistan. Thank you, I'm gonna ask one more question before opening up to the audience and a friendly reminder to the audience to please submit your question using the chat box function on the USIP event page. I wanna ask you about US troop presence. General McKenzie, commander of US Central Command has stated that US troops in Afghanistan will be down to 4,500 by November and of course the US agreement with the Taliban states that all remaining troops will be withdrawn by May, 2021. You have said here, you've said before that any withdrawal is conditions-based and could you give us a better sense of what conditions in your view would have to be met for the United States to withdraw all remaining troops from Afghanistan? One to say two things, one is that being an Afghanistan militarily is not an end in itself for the United States and it is condition-based and the agreement that specifies the conditions and if we implement the agreement which has four elements, it's a package that I mentioned. Terrorism is an issue that we feel assured that there will be no terrorist threat against the United States from the territory of Afghanistan and that there is inter-Afghan negotiations and then agreement on a political roadmap and that there is a comprehensive permanence ceasefire and then there is a schedule for withdrawal and I think that what we will do is we will go to the numbers that you mentioned quoting General McKenzie and then assess where we are and I want to also say that it is the judgment of our military leadership that at that number we still can do the mission, the mission being counter-terrorism, the mission being support for the Afghan security forces and so that agreement with those conditions made it possible for the Afghan government and the Dalits to sit together and come to an agreement but it is condition based what we do with regard to the troops and judgment will have to be made with regard to the next phase this fall. Thank you, Ambassador. Let me now go to our first question from the audience. This is an anonymous questioner. Given that the deal you signed with the Taliban was in an elite bargain with select individuals in the view of this questioner, how will you ensure that the actual piece will be inclusive of all of Afghanistan and be on terms that a majority of the Afghans will accept? Well, the agreement that we signed with the Talibs, well, obviously as it says it was with the Talibs and as I mentioned before the Talibs demonstrated to our satisfaction that in fact these people that we were negotiating with could deliver and one indication of that before signing was to see that they did control the forces by asking for seven days in terms of reduction of violence with the specific percentage in reduction which was 75 to 80% in that range. And I think they exceeded that or were met the target. So we were dealing with rather than some used to say a faction or people who really didn't have any connection to the people on the ground that that was not the case. And the joint declaration was with the government of Afghanistan and we insisted and I'm glad to say we have achieved an inclusive delegation from the government or from the Islamic Republic that includes not only representatives from the executive branch, the government but also include representative of major political forces, civil society, women were not part of the executive branch of the government. So I think it is a representative group and we will also do, as I said, parallel events that issues that need to be paid attention to that are of concern to a broad population of Afghanistan that are of concern to a broad population of Afghanistan or paid attention to and the delegates, the negotiating people, representatives will have an opportunity to listen to these discussions and have recommendations presented to them. I think that for peace to work in Afghanistan, it has to be the agreement has to be broadly accepted and that's why we insisted on a broad representative delegation and for it, for peace to work in Afghanistan it also has to have broad region and an international support and therefore we have focused in parallel both on the Afghans and on the international community to achieve to where we are and to achieve peace and an enduring peace and honorable peace for the Afghan people. We have several questions about what will be the agenda for the talks and what is the late agreement on the agenda between the two sides. Charlotte Greenfield from Reuters asks, do you think the US Taliban February agreement should be the basis of intra-Afghan negotiations? Do you agree with the Taliban interpretation that using this agreement would mean that the new government should have to be formed and there should not be a full ceasefire during the negotiations until a final deal is struck? Right, negotiators have been focused on rules, governing negotiations, procedures and rules and they have agreed on 18 of I think 20 or so items and a couple that they are focused on right now and one has to do with sort of the religious issue of what rule, religious rules will apply for conflict resolution and the other as it was said on the role of the US Taliban agreement. I believe that it's best for me not to, since it's an Afghan, let Afghan own process, attempting as it might be to express myself because that would be violating my role in terms of letting Afghans work these things out. But having said that, I am, the United States and other countries, very distinguished diplomats from other places are willing to be helpful. But we want that the help to be asked for by the Afghans when they think they need it. On the ceasefire issue, we are for a ceasefire but I believe that in the near term, it's more realistic to get to a reduction of violence agreement and a comprehensive permanence ceasefire is very likely to be part of a political settlement. So it is more likely that we will get a reduction of violence agreement. That's more, I would like to think that's my judgment based on talking to all sides that that seems to be the most likely next step on the violence front. I want to ask you a follow up question on that very subject, trying to drill a little more deeply. This comes from Jawad Nurewal, a graduate student from George Mason University. He asked the following, that Taliban continue to attack Afghan security forces and violence levels have not changed since the February agreement was signed. And you've addressed that and may want to say a little bit more about it. He points out that 14,000 Afghans have been killed since the February agreement. What specific violence reduction is needed to meet the terms of the US Taliban agreement? Well, I have said that overall casualties are down for the first six months of this year compared to the last. I have said that in terms of commitment made by the Taliban, no attacks on the coalition. But at the same time, I described the categories that urban Afghans live in more security since the agreement than they did last year. That doesn't mean no violence because there are, violence is very complex and Afghanistan, the sources of it. It is in just Taliban and the government. There are other elements involved. ISIS is very active in terms of violence in urban areas especially. And ISIS wants to derail the potential agreement. And as Steve would remember, I also served in Iraq and we were trying to bring the Sunni and Shi'ite Iraqis together and then a terrorist group blew up the Al-Azkariya mosque because Al-Qaeda in Iraq and other terrorist groups were trying to bring people together. They were trying to tear them apart. And so ISIS is doing exactly that in Afghanistan. And there are some others who do not wish this process to succeed, see benefit in the status quo for themselves that are also involved in violence. Having said all that, the Taliban and the government are the two main contributors to the violence in the rural areas. And we would like to see an agreed reduction in categories and that's what the subject of the discussion at the present time. But I want to also let the audience know that the United States comes and is allowed under the agreement to the defense of the Afghan forces when they are attacked by the Taliban. And that is perhaps something that a lot of people haven't paid attention to that while the Taliban do not attack us, we defend the Afghan by attacking the Taliban when the Taliban attack Afghan forces and civilians when we see it or when we can act and we do act. And that's not in the Taliban interest for this escalation between the two sides that increasingly can bring the coalition back into a greater level of violence with the Taliban as well. That should be of interest to them. And if the violence continues at this level, the last point, it's not good for the peace process. It decreases confidence in the peace process. It decreases trust, increases suspicion and undermine the hopes and aspirations of the Afghan people. So they would be paying a price with the people of Afghanistan as well. An anonymous questioner asks, are the Taliban indeed cracking down on al-Qaeda for the February agreement with the United States? And if so, what evidence is there and how much of a presence is there of al-Qaeda now in Afghanistan? Thank you for that question. The presence is obviously thanks to the efforts of our military and security and other elements of our government and our allies. They are a very small number, even if you include al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent. And they are mostly focused on survival because we are hunting for them. As far as the Taliban commitments, they have taken steps, but this is unfinished business. From our point of view, they need to take more. But there has been progress on that front as well. And as I said before, unless we are satisfied with regard to terrorist threats, our commitments cannot be implemented or completed until that is done. I'm a little bit of a disadvantage, Steve, to go into details of what they have done. I did have a closed session with members of Congress in which I shared the details of what is going on. But this is as far as I can go in this setting, as I said in the open session when I was pressed on that issue. We appreciate that, Ambassador. Let me go to follow up on something you said in your opening comments. Several commenters have asked about regional dynamics, including the positions of Iran, Russia, and China towards the talks. You've been very active in diplomacy across the region, meeting with these countries. Based on that, how do you assess regional support for the peace process at this point? And what support do you want to see from them from the peace process beyond what you've seen so far? Well, I'm encouraged by what has been done, first by major powers, China, Russia, India, or of course, European allies. We have several groupings that have been formed as a result of the active diplomatic engagement that we've had. We have a Troika with Russia and China in support of the Afghan peace process and the United Nations passed a resolution in the Security Council unanimously approving of the peace agreement and the agreements that we made in February. And several times, I know that these countries have asked for reduction in violence, or inter-Afghan negotiations, and some of them even have supported statements that this Emirate is a return of the Emirate of the 1990s is unacceptable and they've sent the right messages to the best that we can judge to the sides with regard to the importance of moving forward. So far as the region is concerned, we already discussed Pakistan sending the right messages from the leadership with regard to the peace process. We also have support from Central Asia. Iran is a bit of a challenge, not because so much of Afghanistan perhaps, but because of the state of our relations with Iran. I think Iran would like to keep us entangled in a conflict without winning or losing, but paying a high price in Afghanistan and that until there is an agreement between US and Iran. But we have offered to meet with Iranians on this issue that they should join various fora where we are there and they are there to discuss the future of Afghanistan. But we have also said that we will respond to encouragement or actual groups that are closely Iran taking action against us, coalition partners, and we're monitoring them very closely and there have been occasionally disturbing actions that have had a negative impact. I have to say that one of the perhaps unintended effects of peace agreement could be, which could be extremely important is the connectivity that peace in Afghanistan could facilitate. Central Asian trade to South Asia and the world, if Afghanistan could be used for that would cut the costs and the time that they now have to suffer from in order to be able to do trade. And therefore there are lots of proposals from the countries of the region for railway, for example, from Uzbekistan, from Mazar-e-Sharif to Peshawar, the connect of the Pakistani railway for their exports that will cut from 26 days that now it takes for their products to reach Southern Pakistan or even Middle Pakistan to 26 hours from days to hours. And we have expressed our willingness as well as others to invest in infrastructure projects to facilitate the vision that President Ghani has had and the Pakistani leaders they have for regional connectivity, regional trade, regional development and who knows even perhaps more without it being necessarily directed against anybody else but this would be for the good of the region and its people. Let me follow up on that with this question from our audience, what role do you think the donor funding conference now scheduled for November can play in supporting the peace process? Are America's allies committed to funding implementation of a peace process and the kinds of projects you just described? And would you support bringing the Taliban to join that meeting in November? I think it was very surprising to me, Steve, that there is so much interest still in Afghanistan. It's fascinating. If you and I when we were working under your leadership together thought 20 years later that will be the kind of positive engagement that towards Afghanistan, I would have been certainly surprised and so there is competition for hosting these meetings and competition. I mean, countries from near and far willing to part facilitate and they participated. All those who were invited except one showed up for the opening ceremony of the talks and Security Council issue the statements of support and there is a November meeting on the commitment financial commitment to Afghanistan that will be well attended that the fence or hosting but we're all there. And I think there is even indication for people to do more for Afghanistan if there was a peace agreement to consolidate it. So I am very hopeful and it's really in the hands of these Afghan leaders right now to take advantage. That's another opportunity and there is not only opportunity for violence reduction and opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past and come to a formula for their country and opportunity because of the region but it's an opportunity also for sustained support from the international community. Now on the Taliban, I think this is an issue that we will have to discuss with them that I have nothing to say on that at the present time. That may ask you. Participation, yeah. Right. Let me ask you a quick follow up on that. Do those countries that are participating in the November conference, even countries like China and Russia and others do they agree with Secretary Pompeo's remarks at the opening center of the conference that the kinds of international assistance that should be given to Afghanistan post peace should be conditioned on the outcome of those talks with respect to the rights of women, minorities, rule of law, human rights, anti-corruption, those sorts of things. Is that reflected international consensus or is that simply a more limited US position? No, it is all the major donors are in agreement on that and we've been working on that on this issue and one of the site or parallel meetings will likely be that's under consideration on development assistance and all major donors. We've done a lot of work with all the major donors and they are all on the same page. Thank you. Several questions have been raised about protections of women's rights. Were specific conditions to protect women's rights presented to the Taliban during the US Taliban negotiations and if so, what was their response? And how does the lack of women on the Taliban negotiations team reflect on this issue of commitments and particularly their commitments to women's rights if they don't have women on their negotiating team? And how can Afghan women have a greater voice in those talks? And will the side meetings you mentioned include women's voices beyond those just on the Afghan Republic's negotiating team? I believe talking to my colleagues who are actively involved in thinking about those parallel events. Yes, my answer is that's what they are thinking of having women and women in addition to the four that are part of the team. In the history of Afghanistan, of course, this issue of women's rights has been timed a lot of progress have been made like in the 1960s or during the King Amanullahs period in the 1920s, but there has been also periods of darkness with regard to progress on this issue. Now, as I said, the Taliban have not been obviously known as people who are advocating women's rights and women's participation. And there are other groups in Afghanistan, including some as part of the Republic who are not known for their advocacy of women's rights, but there have been a lot of progress that has been made. Afghanistan today is not the same Afghanistan prior to American engagement or American encounter with Afghanistan, as I like to call it. There has been an enduring transformation on so many levels that I tell the Taliban that they need to familiarize themselves with this new Afghanistan. And this will be obviously an important issue and there may be differences and what's different this time in my judgment, at least if I'm not mistaken, that women themselves are participating in the discussion. Very capable women who speak eloquently for their rights for the importance of it and certainly there is a much more international focus like never before in a peace process dealing with Afghanistan like it is today, the status of women, the future, the gains that have been made. But women also want peace, besides their rights, their mothers, their wives, their soldiers themselves and the security forces and among the advocates for peace, for ending violence, women are very present. Sometimes we think of women just in relation to one issue but in fact, women have views and attitude towards peace. That's why when I say some, you know, 80, 85% that's according to recent polls support this peace process, these negotiations certainly that includes women as well. Ambassador, we're running out of time. I'm gonna ask you one quick last question and then we'll be done. What kind of relationship do you envision between the United States and an Afghan government that includes the Taliban, if the negotiations succeed and if that is the outcome of those negotiations? Would the United States have a problem dealing with such a government? Well, of course the objective of the negotiations is to have an inclusive government in Afghanistan that that brought support and given this role of the Taliban in Afghanistan, that means that they would be involved in that process and the other Afghans, the Republic Afghans including President Ghani and Chairman Abdullah and others say the Taliban have to be part of the government otherwise peace cannot come to Afghanistan. Now with regard to our objective we want to have an enduring partnership with future Afghanistan on counterterrorism and cooperation with it. And we also would like to provide and be able to provide assistance of other relations, diplomatic, political and developmental relations with Afghanistan and the region as to the question of dealing with the Taliban as part of that, given the current rules and laws we would have to look at all of those to be able to do that. And it's not only with regard to economic and financial and developmental support but also even on security issues as to what we can do, what we would be able to do. We face that issue right now even on the issue of counterterrorism. So we have challenges in terms of adjustments that we would make as the Taliban and the other Afghans have issues with regard to the adjustments that they would have to make. And I think there is a way to work them wouldn't be without challenges or difficulties but given how far we have come given all the challenges that have existed and we've managed to find a way to either overcome them or find a workaround, I have great confidence in our ability to be able to find formulas, ways to be able to meet our national objectives to be a good partner with Afghanistan and to leave a good legacy behind from the sacrifices, the commitments, the expenditure of blood and treasure that has been made by the United States and our partners in Afghanistan. And we could have withdrawn we didn't need anyone's permission to leave if that's all what we wanted to but the purpose of our diplomacy has been and the reason for making that conditional has been to leave a good legacy behind to help Afghans in their tragedy. Many Americans who have served there are fond of Afghans they've developed. I'm always very surprised to talk to soldiers on the street sometimes some ex-soldier starts me on the street they recognize me and tell their stories of why they want something good to be left behind but the war to end as soldiers to come home but also for Afghans to be in a better place than they have been because of the wars in their country. Thank you very much, Steve. I appreciate that you have taken the time and look forward to our conversations as well as thank you, the audience, the virtual audience and wish everybody good health. Thank you Ambassador for being with us. We appreciate it so much. We are out of time. I want to thank the audience for joining us and for the good questions. That concludes our session. Thanks so much. Good luck Ambassador on the work that lies ahead for you. Thank you.