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KABUL: US President Donald Trump in a fresh tweet has said that Taliban knows they made a big mistake and they have no idea how to recover it.
“Taliban has never been hit harder than it is being hit right now. Killing 12 people, including one great US soldier, was not a good idea. There are much better ways to set up a negotiation. The Taliban knows they made a big mistake, and they have no idea how to recover!” President Trump said in a tweet on Saturday.
President Trump called off peace negotiations with the Taliban that sought to end 18-year war in Afghanistan through finding a political settlement to the Afghan conflict.
Mr. Trump tweeted he had been set to meet President Ashraf Ghani and Taliban Qatar members in Camp David in a secret meeting, but he cancelled it after the militants admitted they were behind a recent attack in Kabul that killed 12 people, including a US soldier.
US and Taliban officials held months of talks in in Qatar and agreed a draft accord that would have seen withdrawal of around 5,000 US troops from Afghanistan in exchange for security guarantees from the Taliban.
However, Taliban negotiating members recently visited Russia and time and again showed willingness for resumption of peace talks with US.
Taliban’s Qatar-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen confirmed the meeting in the Russian capital, saying the group’s delegation held consultations with Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan.
At the meeting, Russia stressed the necessity of the resumption of talks between the US and the Taliban, while the group’s delegation reiterated their readiness to renewing dialogue with Washington, an unidentified Russian foreign ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the TASS news agency.
Shaheen, the Taliban spokesman, said Trump’s move came as a surprise to the group as the peace negotiations had concluded “successfully” and a deal was to be announced soon.
