[NEWS] Trump says he canceled peace talks with Taliban over attack – Loganspace AI

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday acknowledged he canceled peace talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders after the insurgent group claimed duty final week for an assault in Kabul that killed an American soldier and 11 other of us.

Trump acknowledged he had deliberate a secret assembly with the Taliban’s “essential leaders” on Sunday at a presidential compound in Camp David, Maryland. Trump acknowledged he additionally deliberate to fulfill with Afghanistan’s president.

Nonetheless Trump acknowledged he without lengthen known as the talks off when the insurgents acknowledged they had been at the aid of the assault.

“In the occasion that they can’t conform to a ceasefire for the length of those wanted peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent of us, then they doubtlessly don’t have the vitality to negotiate a meaningful settlement anyway,” Trump acknowledged on Twitter.

The shock announcement left in doubt the methodology ahead for the draft accord worked out final week by Zalmay Khalilzad, the special U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan, for a drawdown of thousands of U.S. troops over the approaching months.

There used to be no rapid response from the Taliban however the resolution looked as if it would take them without warning.

Appropriate hours sooner than Trump’s tweet, a senior Taliban chief conscious about talks in Doha with U.S. officials including Khalilzad and Taliban chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, acknowledged an settlement to signal the deal appeared shut.

Taliban opponents, who now control extra territory than at any time since 2001, launched contemporary assaults on the northern cities of Kunduz and Pul-e Khumri over the previous week and implemented two essential suicide bombings in the capital Kabul.

One among the blasts, a suicide assault in Kabul on Thursday, took the lifetime of U.S. Military Sergeant 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Puerto Rico, bringing the series of American troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 16.

A spike in assaults by Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan has been “namely unhelpful” to peace efforts there, a senior U.S. militia commander acknowledged on Saturday as he visited neighboring Pakistan, where many Taliban militants are essentially based fully.

U.S. Marine Overall Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees American troops in the plot, declined to observation on the diplomatic negotiations themselves but criticized a wave of Taliban violence that has cast a prolonged shadow over the deal.

“It’s especially unhelpful at this moment in Afghanistan’s history for the Taliban to ramp up violence,” McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Bid, educated journalists touring with him.

McKenzie acknowledged for the peace project to circulation ahead, “all occasions must be committed to an eventual political settlement” which, in turn, must light lead to diminished violence.

“If we are in a position to’t web that getting into into, then it is miles difficult to acknowledge the occasions are going so as to attain the terms of the settlement, whatever they would possibly well or would possibly no longer be,” McKenzie acknowledged.

Under the draft accord, some 5,000 U.S. troops would possibly perhaps be withdrawn over the approaching months in commerce for guarantees Afghanistan would no longer be archaic as a damaging for militant assaults on the United States and its allies.

Nonetheless, a fleshy peace settlement to discontinuance better than 18 years of battle would rely on subsequent “intra Afghan” talks though-provoking officials and civil society leaders as successfully as extra settlement on concerns including the rest of the roughly 14,000-solid U.S. forces as successfully as thousands of different NATO troops.

The Taliban have rejected calls for a ceasefire and instead stepped up operations across the country and it stays unclear whether or no longer they’ll accept train negotiations with the Afghan govt, which they provide conception to an illegitimate “puppet” regime.

NEW CIVIL WAR?

For Afghans, the Taliban’s most widespread escalation of assaults has underscored fears it will perhaps perhaps be no longer likely to prevail in a stable settlement following any entire U.S. withdrawal.

Ghani dismissed the talks as “meaningless” following Thursday’s suicide bombing and his spokesman acknowledged an loyal response to Trump’s announcement would advance soon.

The Taliban’s approach seems to be essentially based fully on the conclusion that battlefield success would toughen their hand in future negotiations with Afghan officials. Just a few of their discipline commanders have additionally acknowledged they are sure to no longer resign beneficial properties when they are shut to victory, suggesting the management is below internal stress to no longer concede a ceasefire.

Nonetheless that has risked undermining acceptance of the deal by Washington and its NATO allies as successfully as by Kabul.

“The Taliban’s leaders will want to display they’ll cease the assaults, if no longer, then what is the point of maintaining prolonged negotiations with Baradar?” acknowledged one Western diplomat in Kabul.

Even contained in the Taliban ranks, there seems to be doubt about how any settlement would purchase discontinuance, given rising opposition to the deal from the govtfacet.

“Don’t ask me how that it is likely you’ll perhaps implement the peace accord,” the Taliban loyal acknowledged.

Reminiscences of the bloody Nineties battle between the Taliban and rival militia groups are shining. Extinct U.S. envoys who worked on Afghanistan warned final week that “total civil battle” with “catastrophic” penalties for U.S. nationwide security used to be that that it is likely you’ll perhaps take into account.

Many have terrified a pair of break along ethnic and regional traces, with Persian-talking Tajiks and Hazaras from the north and west in opposition to southern and eastern Pashtuns, the group which have equipped most of Afghanistan’s rulers and where the Taliban blueprint most enhance.

Some Taliban are essentially based fully in neighboring Pakistan, where McKenzie held talks on Saturday with a prime Pakistani widespread. More talks are scheduled for Sunday.

McKenzie acknowledged he didn’t know whether or no longer any of the planning for the most widespread wave of assaults in Afghanistan came from Pakistan-essentially based fully militants.

Nonetheless McKenzie commended Pakistan for supporting the peace efforts in Afghanistan, in the most widespread signal of an development in prolonged-fraught relatives between Washington and Islamabad.

“Rather a pair of Pakistanis were killed by militant assaults internal Pakistan. I mediate Pakistan sees the advantages of a stable Afghanistan,” McKenzie acknowledged.