U.S. and Taliban Agree to Violence Reduction Proposal; White House Whirlwind
ALLEN: Welcome back. Diplomats and world leaders are tackling the issue of international security right now, the final day of the Munich Security Conference. And one topic garnering major attention, the war in Afghanistan. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says a plan by the United States and the Taliban to scale back the violence has a, quote, "moving date." And also House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Nic Robertson's at this security conference. Nic, Nancy Pelosi spoke a short while ago. What did she have to say?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN  INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, very interestingly, interesting for a lot the delegates that have come here from European capitals, that she was quite aligned with Mark Esper and some of the other government officials from the Department of Justice, from the Department of State, from the State Department and even presidential adviser here, briefing journalists about the concerns about China's Huawei's 5G technology and the U.S.' determination to protect its national security by not aligning with countries who are going to use Huawei's equipment. That means a lot of European nations. So what we heard from Nancy Pelosi and the congressional delegation, saying they've been engaged in similar discussions with European partners here and they say these European partners are going to do some deep and hard thinking about the Huawei 5G issue. There really seems an alignment between the Democrats and what President Trump's officials are pushing and telling European partners and is that 5G equipment made by Huawei is damaging for these countries.</s>ROBERTSON: It's not --</s>ALLEN: Go ahead, Nic. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt.</s>ROBERTSON: It's damaging for the national security of these countries. The United States isn't going to use it and won't partner with those countries in the future because they believe the values of China are autocratic, they're using 5G technology against people, to violate the human rights of people in China. And to use that technology in any way potentially opens the door to China to harvesting data from these nations and stealing intellectual property.</s>ALLEN: All right, that's something that the United States as you say has been staunchly opposed to there. Now let's talk about Afghanistan. And how major is this, what we're seeing as a potential breakthrough with the Taliban?</s>ROBERTSON: Yes, Mark Esper said very clearly that he believes this is an opportunity for politics to take hold in Afghanistan, from the talks directly between the U.S. government and the Taliban. It doesn't involve -- those talks haven't involved the Afghan government. But the Afghan government here have been speaking here with Mark Esper and the president's special representative, who has been negotiating with the Taliban. It's a reduction in violence, is the agreement that the United States government has with the Taliban; the Afghan government supports that. The Afghans saying they'd like more detail on how to implement this reduction in violence. What would the rules of it be? All these technical details. So it seems we're on the verge of a potential transition to a reduction in violence, which could lead to ultimately to reduction in U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But it seems that it's not buttoned up entirely and it hasn't gone into force yet.</s>ALLEN: Right, as you said earlier, that reduction could take quite some time up to a year. All right, Nic Robertson following two different stories there. Thanks so much. CNN's Christiane Amanpour is also there at the Munich Security Conference, she's conducted two major interviews including with president Volodymyr Zelensky and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.</s>VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF UKRAINE: When I had meeting with Mr. President Trump and he said about that -- he said that, previous years, it was so corrupt, his country, Ukraine. I told honestly and I was very open with him, I told him that we fight this corruption, we fight with this, fight each day. But please, please stop to say that Ukraine is corrupt. Because for now, it's not true.</s>ALLEN (voice-over): Mr. Zelensky also spoke about his newfound fame in the United States after his country was at the center of the impeachment trial.</s>ZELENSKY: Now I'm very popular in USA.</s>ZELENSKY: But I didn't want to find such way. But you know but if this wave will help Ukraine, I'm ready for next call with Mr. Trump.</s>ALLEN: Now Nancy Pelosi also spoke about the impeachment trial in Christiane's interview and that moment right there, the House Speaker explained that moment that made headlines around the world, where she very publicly ripped up President Trump's State of the Union address.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE SPEAKER: I had no intention of doing that when we went to the State of the Union. Now I'm a speed reader, so I knew what was there. I got past a third of it and I thought, this is terrible. A couple of pages, thinking, I ought to remember on this page and then I realized almost every page had something in it that was objectionable. So it wasn't a planned thing but it was -- one of my disappointments, with all of that we have done legislatively, whether it's equal pay for equal work, raising the minimum wage, gun violence, the list goes on, climate action now, we have very little press on it. And it seems that, if you want to get press, you have to get attention. So I thought, well, let's get attention on the fact that what he said here today was not true.</s>ALLEN: For our international viewers, tune into "AMANPOUR" for the full exclusive interview on Monday 6:00 pm in London and 10:00 pm in Abu Dhabi. Basketball's All-Stars are honoring one of their own, how fans and professional players are paying tribute to Kobe Bryant and his daughter. Plus this is ahead.</s>DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Getting a bed in a hospital shouldn't be contingent whether patients test positive for the virus or not but you look online and you see a different, disturbing reality.</s>ALLEN: People in China desperate to get medical attention for themselves or their loved ones. Our David Culver reporting straight ahead here.