4. The negotiator

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The woman face to face with the Taliban - peacemaker, women’s rights advocate and negotiator, Fatima Gailani is the nearest Afghanistan has to aristocracy. Now in her late 60s, she was the female face of Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the Mujahideen. She returned to Afghanistan after 24 years in exile following the US-led invasion of 2001. And in 2020 she became one of four female peace negotiators to sit down with the Taliban. She tells Lyse Doucet, talking is the only way and she and all Afghans deserve peace.