“
The Taliban wants to make a deal and we’re meeting with them,” he said. “We’re going to stay until such time as we have a deal or we have total victory, and they want to make a deal very badly.”
Talks with the Taliban,
reported to be close to a deal, ended in September after plans to host the militants at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland,
fell apart after the death of a US soldier and under press criticism once it was realised meetings would coincide with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Trump said then the talks were “dead”.
Taliban sponsorship of the al-Qaida attacks, in which
2,977 people were killed in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania, led to the US invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
“As you know,” Trump said on Thursday, “for a period of time we’ve been working to make a deal. We’ve made tremendous progress over the last six months. We’ve made tremendous progress and at the same time we’ve been drawing down our troops.”
Ghani thanked the Americans who he said had made the “ultimate sacrifice” and said US casualties in
Afghanistan were way down under Trump’s presidency.
“Afghan security forces are taking the lead now,” he said.
Trump said talks had been “close” to a deal but “we pulled back because of what they did. It was not a good thing they did with killing the soldier. An American soldier, from Puerto Rico.”