United States Special Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad. PHOTO: REUTERS
US special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad was recalled from Qatar, a day after President Donald Trump cancelled the Afghan peace talks.
Speaking to CBS News, US Secretary Mike Pompeo confirmed that the special envoy was being called back and added that it was now up to the Taliban to resume the peace talks.
The Afghan peace deal reached a deadlock after Trump scrapped talks with Taliban planned for Camp David over the weekend following a suicide bombing that killed an American soldier in Kabul last week.
Trump says Taliban talks 'dead,' US military to ramp up Afghanistan operations
“The president ultimately made the conclusion that the meetings today wouldn’t deliver on the outcome that he is demanding we get for the American people,” Pompeo said.
“And when he saw that, when he saw that they couldn’t deliver on the reduction in violence commitments that they had made, he said there’s no sense in having this meeting.”
Despite the Afghan government’s wariness of negotiating with the Taliban, Trump had hoped having both parties at the presidential retreat could produce a deal.
A draft accord agreed last week would have seen about 5,000 American troops withdrawn over coming months in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States or its allies.
Bringing US troops home from Afghanistan has been one of Trump’s main foreign policy objectives, and the Republican president said his administration was still thinking about a drawdown of the 14,000 US soldiers in the country.
The Taliban had stepped up attacks even as the talks were taking place in recent weeks.
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