Trump optimism on Kabul trip upended by militant group's reversal on stance
KABUL - Donald Trump wrapped up a whirlwind visit to Kabul to share in Thanksgiving celebrations with US troops on Thursday. While the United States president missed out on tucking into some turkey, he is left with a far bigger disappointment: No immediate prospect of a resumption of peace talks with the Taliban.
The militant group said on Friday it was "way too early" to speak of resuming direct talks with Washington, a day after Trump suggested negotiations to end the US' longest war were back on track during his surprise visit to Afghanistan.
"It is way too early to talk about the resumption of talks for now. We will give our official reaction later," the Islamist group's official spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told Agence France-Presse in a WhatsApp message.
Just hours earlier, Mujahid had said the Taliban were "ready to restart the talks" that collapsed after Trump had called them off earlier this year.
"Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped," Mujahid told Reuters
On Thursday, Trump had said the Taliban "wants to make a deal".
"We're meeting with them and we're saying it has to be a cease-fire," he told reporters during his unannounced trip to Bagram Airfield, outside the capital.
His statement had suggested progress after his shock decision in September to end negotiations with the insurgents just as Washington appeared on the verge of signing a deal with the Taliban that would have seen the US begin pulling troops out of Afghanistan in return for security guarantees.
Trump took off after midnight from Bagram after several hours with the troops and a brief meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. His first stop was a dining hall, where the crowd erupted into cheers when he arrived. There, he served turkey to soldiers dressed in fatigues and sat down for a meal. But he said he only tasted the mashed potatoes before he was pulled away for photos.
"I never got the turkey," he told the troops. "A gorgeous piece of turkey."
Traveling with Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming and a small clutch of aides, including his acting chief of staff, press secretary and national security adviser, Trump appeared in good spirits as he was escorted around the base by heavily armed soldiers, as the smell of burning fuel and garbage wafted through the chilly air. Unlike last year's post-Christmas visit to Iraq - his first to an active combat zone - first lady Melania Trump did not make the trip.
Taliban backflip
Before the apparent backflip in the Taliban's position on talks on Friday, a senior Taliban commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "We are hoping that Trump's visit to Afghanistan will prove that he is serious to start talks again. We don't think he has not much of a choice."
The US president abruptly broke off peace talks with the Taliban in September, canceling a secret meeting with militants at Camp David after a bombing in Kabul that killed 12 people, including a US soldier. It was not immediately clear how long or substantive the US re-engagement with the Taliban had been.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said Ghani was notified of the president's visit a few hours before Trump's arrival and accepted an invitation to meet at the base.
There are currently about 13,000 US forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops in Afghanistan, 18 years after an invasion by a US-led coalition following the Sept 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks on the US.
About 2,400 US service members have been killed in the course of the Afghan conflict.
A draft accord agreed in September would have thousands of US troops withdrawn in exchange for guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the US or its allies.
Reuters - Ap
