Background:
The Supreme State Council High State Council (Shura-ye ‘Ali-ye Dawlat) met for the first time on 27 February. Its establishment was part of the May 2020 Political Agreement between President Ghani and his former coalition partner-turned-for-the-second-time-election rival, Dr Abdullaha and was meant to be comprised of “political leaders and national figures” who would “build political consensus” and advise the president on “crucial national issues.” The council’s exact size and composition has never been publicised and up till now, it had remained dormant. Khalilzad met many of its members while he was in Kabul, either in person or online (in Hekmatyar’s case, for example), and also talked with, as described by US Embassy tweets, “peace activists” and “women leaders.”(20210305)

18 Member Supreme State Council:
There are 14 men and 4 women on the list.
1. Abdullah Abdullah, 2. former president Hamid Karzai, 2. former jihadi leader Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf, 3. Hizb-e-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 4. former vice president Mohammad Karim Khalili, 5. former foreign minister Salahuddin Rabbani, 6. Fatima Gailani, 7. Mohammad Mohaqiq, 8. Marshal Abdul Rashid Dostum, 9. Ata Mohammad Noor, 10. Mohammad Sarwar Danish, 11. Mir Rahman Rahmani, 12. Fazel Hadi Muslimyar, 13. Mrs. Hasina Safi, 14. Mrs. Fawzia Koofi, 15. Mrs. Habiba Sarabi, 16. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, 17. u/i, 18. u/i. The Presidential Palace said that the list has not been finalized so far.(20210523)

More Background:
On 29 August, President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai issued decree no 72 approving 46 members of the Leadership Committee of the High Council for National Reconciliation (HCNR), which is led by Dr Abdullah Abdullah. Their 17 May political agreement envisages two bodies within the HCNR: a Leadership Committee and a General Assembly. The Leadership Committee is politically important as it is supposed to steer the government’s negotiation team, providing “approvals and guidelines” for talks with the Taleban. That 21-member team, announced by the government on 26 March 2020, is led by key Ghani aide, Masum Stanekzai; he is Pashtun from Logar and is the former head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS). A mix of people drawn from Abdullah, Ghani and a few other camps and of ethnicities and factional backgrounds, the members are mainly male, generally younger than the HCNR members, and largely mid-ranking, with some children of major leaders, such as Batur Dostum (son of Abdul Rashid) and Khaled Nur (son of Atta Muhammad) included.