Afghanistan Times
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AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: The US President Donald Trump has said that Taliban are “Tough,” and “Smart”, but the US is dealing well with the group.
“They’re very tough, they’re very smart, they’re very sharp, but you know it’s been 19 years and even they are tired of fighting, in all fairness,” Trump said at a news conference according to a White House statement.
“We’re having some very good discussions with the Taliban, as you probably heard,” Trump says referring to the peace negotiations with the Taliban.
“And so we’ll be out of there, knowing that certain things have to happen — certain things have to be fulfilled. But 19 years is a long time, 8,000 miles away. Nineteen years is a long time,” Trump added.
On February 29th 2019, US signed a peace agreement with the Taliban, facilitating the direct talks with the Afghan government. Based on the agreement the Kabul government had released 5,000 Taliban prisoners and Taliban freed 1,000 Afghan security forces taking hostages.
Kabul and Taliban peace negotiators are currently in Doha, working on principles of the talks. Afghan government’s negotiating delegation says they are optimistic in a ceasefire agreement with their Taliban interlocutors. However, the two negotiating teams have not yet held official meetings. Taliban side has only focused on the technical issues. A negotiating member, Nader Naderi said that there are a couple of controversial issues that would be resolved soon.
This is as recently H.R. McMaster, former US national security adviser, said President Trump partnered with the Taliban ahead of this month’s peace negotiations in Doha but insisted on continued support of Washington to the Afghan government.
According to him withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and partnering with the Taliban has made the United States less safe.
