Washington: The United States and Afghanistan’s Taliban on Sunday both left the door open to fresh talks after President Donald Trump abruptly cancelled a secret summit, but the insurgents threatened to inflict greater costs.
Washington also said it would not relent in fighting the militants after Trump blamed the scuttling of the unprecedented meeting on a Taliban attack that killed a US soldier.
Trump said he had invited Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for talks Sunday at the Camp David presidential retreat on a draft deal that would see the United States withdraw thousands of troops and wind down its longest-ever war.
In a series of television interviews, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did not rule out a return to talks but said the United States needed a “significant commitment” from the Taliban.
“In the end, this will be resolved through a series of conversations,” he said, urging the Taliban to drop their long-running refusal to negotiate with Ghani’s internationally recognized government.
Veteran US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad had spent a year meeting with the Taliban, who said that Trump showed “neither experience nor patience.”
“Americans will be harmed more than any other” by Trump’s decision, warned a statement by the group’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. But he added that the Taliban still believed “that the American side will come back to this position” of talks that seek “the complete end of the occupation.”
The office of Ghani, whose government is rejected by the Taliban as illegitimate, cautiously saluted the “sincere efforts of its allies” after Trump called off the summit.
The Afghan presidency in a statement also insisted that “real peace can only be achieved if the Taliban stop killing Afghans and accept a ceasefire, and face-to-face talks with the Afghan government.”
Trump’s dramatic about-face came weeks ahead of Afghanistan’s presidential elections, raising fears that the Taliban will step up their campaign of violence to disrupt voting.
Trump relishes dramatic gestures, such as meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but the idea of inviting Taliban leaders to US soil still stunned Washington. The would-be talks angered even some allies of Trump, who noted that the Taliban would be visiting three days before the 18th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, which triggered the US invasion of Afghanistan. (AFP)
