Geneva Accords (1988)

The Geneva Accords ( Eng. Geneva Accords , officially the “ Agreement on the Settlement of the Situation in the Republic of Afghanistan ”) are the agreements on the settlement of the armed conflict in Afghanistan , signed on April 14, 1988 by the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan with the participation of the USA and the USSR as guarantors ^[1] .

Several points were envisaged: a bilateral agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan on the principles of relations between countries, especially on the principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs; declaration of guarantors of the agreement, signed by the USA and the USSR; a bilateral agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan on the voluntary return of Afghan refugees to the country; Afghanistan settlement agreement signed by Pakistan and Afghanistan ^[2] .

The agreements that were signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and Eduard Shevarnadze on the part of the USSR also determined the schedule for the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country , which went from May 15, 1988 to February 15, 1989, thereby putting an end to the stage of the civil war involving the USSR.

The Afghan opposition (Mujahideen) did not participate in the negotiations and was not a party to the agreements, rejecting their terms. As a result of the agreement, they did not actually affect the situation in Afghanistan - Pakistan and other opposition allies continued to intervene in its internal affairs, trying to overthrow the Afghan government, and the civil war did not stop ^{[3] [4]} . So in June 1988, Pakistani President Ziya-ul-Haq declared that the Geneva Agreements were "nothing more than a fig leaf." In fact, a similar point of view was shared by the US leadership, which continued to supply weapons to the Mujahideen even after the conclusion of agreements ^[3] .