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Trump says as far as he is concerned, Afghanistan talks are dead

10 September 2019 05:00 (UTC +04:00)

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders are off and that he was still considering a U.S. troop drawdown in the country, APA reports quoting Reuters.

“They’re dead. They’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead,” Trump said of the talks, speaking with reporters as he left the White House for North Carolina.

Months of U.S. negotiations with the Taliban militants, who control large parts of Afghanistan, ended on Saturday when Trump abruptly announced he was canceling secret talks at Camp David with the Taliban and the country’s president, Ashraf Ghani. The talks were aimed at securing an agreement to pull U.S. troops out after nearly 20 years of war.

A draft accord agreed last week would have seen about 5,000 American troops withdrawn over coming months in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States or its allies.