BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — President Trump paid an unannouncedThanksgiving visit to American troops here on Thursday, and said that hehas restarted peace negotiations with the Taliban less than three monthsafter he scuttled talks with the group.
“The Taliban wants to make a deal, and we’re meeting with them,” Mr. Trumpsaid here during a meeting with Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani.
“We’re going to stay until such time as we have a deal, or we have totalvictory, and they want to make to make a deal very badly,” said Mr. Trump,who reaffirmed his desire to reduce America’s troop presence here from12,000 to 13,000 to 8,600.
Mr. Trump made his first visit to Afghanistan under a shroud of secrecy,arriving in a darkened airplane just after 8:30 p.m. local time on a tripthat the White House had concealed from his public schedule for securityreasons.
Mr. Trump carried out the traditional role of feeding turkey and mashedpotatoes to American troops in fatigues, before dining, mingling and posingfor photographs before he delivered remarks celebrating America’s militaryin an aircraft hangar.
But his visit also had an important political dimension, and comes at acrossroads for Afghanistan and the United States military presence heremonths after Mr. Trump angrily called off his talks with the Taliban, whichhad produced a draft agreement that would begin the phased withdrawal ofAmerican forces from the country.Mr. Trump, who boasted of American military successes against Al Qaeda andthe Islamic State, suggested that the Taliban is eager to make a peacedeal, but that he himself is indifferent to that outcome.
“The Taliban wants to make a deal — we’ll see if they make a deal. If theydo, they do, and if they don’t they don’t. That’s fine,” Mr. Trump said.
He also said that the Taliban is now willing to agree to a cease-fire, amatter of contention in the earlier talks and something that Mr. Ghani’sgovernment has been insistent upon.
We’re saying it has to be a cease-fire, and they didn’t want to do acease-fire,” Mr. Trump said of the Afghan insurgents. “Now they do want todo a cease-fire. I believe it’ll probably work out that way.”