US President Donald Trump announces the suspension of peace talks with the Taliban, while also holding secret meetings with Taliban leaders and Afghan President at Camp David today.
“President Trump says he cancelled a secret meeting at Camp David tomorrow with Taliban leaders and Afghanistan’s President”
Donald Trump made the announcement after killing twelve people, including a US soldier, in Kabul. The US president wrote in his tweets that on this important occasion, twelve innocent people were killed in Kabul, which the Taliban have also confessed, in which case the Taliban lost the option of negotiating for a meaningful deal.
He asked how many decades the Afghan Taliban wanted to fight. Trump detailed in several tweets that he would meet Afghan President and Taliban leaders at a presidential concert in Maryland on Sunday. “No one knew that the key Taliban leader and the Afghan president was going to hold secret meetings with me at Camp David on Sunday,” Trump wrote.
He tweeted: He (the Taliban) was coming to the United States tonight, but unfortunately he claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul in an attempt to take advantage of the negotiations.
Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
Trump’s decision to suspend talks came at a time when US special negotiator for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, had said that a peace deal between the two sides was almost over.
According to the draft negotiations between the United States and the Taliban, US troops will leave their five military bases in Afghanistan within 135 days following the signing of the agreement.
In response, the Taliban were expected to never allow their country to be used for global terrorist operations. However, in recent weeks, several major attacks in Afghanistan have hampered the negotiation process when the Taliban negotiated with US negotiators.