US President Donald Trump claims he’s called for peace talks with the Taliban to end America’s 18-year conflict in Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump tweeted he would meet with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and leading Taliban officials on Sunday.
But he canceled a confidential conference at his Camp David retreat after terrorists confessed that they were behind a latest assault that murdered a US soldier.
The Taliban said the Americans would “lose the most” for cancellation
They scheduled the discussions to be a few days before 9/11.
The US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government in the summer of 2001, because the rebels had offered the al-Qaeda network a secure place to schedule assaults on the US on 11 September.
Meanwhile, the cabinet of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani-who, according to the US President, would have encountered Mr Trump individually in Camp David-said that true peace would only be workable if the Taliban agreed to a ceasefire and immediate talks with the Afghan government.
Mr. Ghani’s cabinet commended the “honest attempts” of his associates.
How shocking is the news?
It resulted from nine rounds of talks between the US and the Taliban, held in Doha, the capital of the Gulf State of Qatar.
But Mr Trump’s tweets on Saturday night seemed to bring an end to almost a year of painstaking talks that had excluded the Afghan government in Kabul, the Taliban had rejected which as US puppets.
“Unfortunately, to create fake leverage, [the Taliban] confessed to an assault in Kabul that murdered one of our excellent troops,” the chairman tweeted.
“I instantly canceled the conference and called for peace talks.”
As a portion of the suggested agreement, the US would have withdrawn 5,400 soldiers within 20 weeks, in exchange for the Afghani group promises that Afghanistan would never again a terrorist base.
The US has some 14,000 soldiers in Afghanistan.
Source: BBC
