President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Saturday, Sept. 7 that he was canceling U.S.-Afghan peace negotiations after learning that the Taliban had launched a murderous terror attack in Kabul thinking it would “strengthen their bargaining position.”
“I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations,” Trump wrote Saturday night.
….only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
Trump said that there had been secret arrangements made for two private meetings on Sept. 8; one with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and another with major Taliban leaders.
“They were coming to the United States tonight,” the president wrote.
Trump said in his tweets that the Taliban had admitted to using deadly attacks as a means to give them a stronger negotiating position in the peace talks with the Afghan government and the United States.
“Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people.
“What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?”
On Sept. 5, an explosion from a Taliban car bomb killed an American soldier, a Romanian service member, and 10 civilians in a busy diplomatic area in Kabul near the U.S. Embassy.
The Defense Department identified the American as Sgt. 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Morovis, Puerto Rico.
Ortiz was the fourth U.S. service member killed in the past two weeks in Afghanistan, amid numerous other attacks by the Taliban and other extremist groups in Afghanistan despite the peace negotiations.
The Trump administration had been hopeful for a peace agreement that could bring an end to the almost 18-year war in Afghanistan that started when the Bush administration invaded the country in October 2001 following the Sept. 11 attacks.
Since then, the United States has lost more than 2,400 soldiers and spent more than $800 billion. The United States and NATO formally concluded their combat mission in 2014, but U.S. and allied troops remain, conducting strikes on the ISIS terrorist group and the Taliban, and working to train and build the Afghan military.
Taliban insurgents, however, control nearly half of Afghanistan. They carry out near-daily attacks, mainly targeting security forces and government officials.
Zalmay Khalilzad, Washington’s peace envoy, has been leading the U.S. peace effort, with a strategy focused on four interconnected issues: counterterrorism, NATO and U.S. troop presence, inter-Afghan dialogue, and a permanent cease-fire.
Khalilzad has said 5,000 U.S. troops would withdraw from five bases in Afghanistan within 135 days of a final deal. Between 14,000 and 13,000 troops are currently in the country.
However, the Taliban want all of the approximately 20,000 U.S. and NATO troops out of Afghanistan immediately, while the United States seeks withdrawal in phases that would depend on the Taliban meeting certain conditions, such as a reduction in violence.
The talks have also sought guarantees from the Taliban that Afghanistan would not again become a safe haven for extremist groups such as al-Qaida and the local affiliate of the ISIS terrorist group.
The Afghan government on Sept. 4 said it remains concerned that a full U.S. troop withdrawal that moves too quickly and without the Taliban meeting conditions, such as reducing violence, could lead to “total civil war” such as the one that engulfed the country in the 1990s after the Soviet–Afghan war, before the Taliban swept into power.
Trump said on Twitter: “If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?
Khalilzad has not commented publicly on this week’s attacks.
With reporting by The Associated Press.
From The Epoch Times
