ISLAMABAD – US mulls drastically cutting diplomatic staff in Kabul as partof deal with Taliban, Afghanistan media has reported.
US officials have said that Washington is considering reducing itsdiplomatic footprint in Afghanistan as part of a broader effort toextricate the United States from its costly and deadly 18-year conflict,Foreign Policy reported on April 5, TOLO News has reported.
The State Department is preparing to cut by half the number of US diplomatsposted in Kabul in 2020, according to three US officials familiar withinternal deliberations as quoted by Foreign Policy.
It may also advance plans to reduce the number of diplomats posted to theUS Embassy in Iraq, the report said.
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This comes as the US and Taliban agreed in draft during the Qatar talks inmid-March on foreign forces withdrawal and counterterrorism assurances.
According to the report, in February, NPR reported on a leaked internaldocument from the US Embassy in Kabul that called the outpost too big andurged a “comprehensive review” of its size, though the document did notoutline the scale of the proposed cuts.
