WASHINGTON – United States and Afghan Taliban peace deal faces a bigsetback, international media has reported.
In a rare move on Saturday night, US President Donald Trump said that hehad called off a secret meeting at Camp David with Taliban leaders andAfghan President Ashraf Ghani over a deadly suicide bombing by the Talibanon Thursday that left at one American soldier and 12 other people dead andscores more wounded.
“….an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peacenegotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seeminglystrengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they….,” Trump tweetedas eyes were focused on Qatar over a possible signing of the agreementbetween the US and the Taliban.
‘Taliban Building The False Leverage’
During the nine months of talks, Trump remained under pressure from theAfghan government, politicians and some members of his own administrationwho mistrust the Taliban and thought it was too early to withdraw US forcesfrom the country.
Mr. Trump also lashed out at the Taliban by saying that the group wastrying to build leverage on the talks by rejecting the ceasefire andkilling the innocent people.
“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peacetalks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’thave the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway,” Mr. Trumptweeted, adding that the Taliban sought to “build false leverage”.
Mr. Khalilzad at the time said that based on the draft agreement, the USwill withdraw 5,000 troops from five bases in Afghanistan within 135 daysif conditions in the agreement are addressed by the Taliban.