A spokesperson for the taliban movement said earlier that the united states has given such a promise, according to the Russian, state-controlled news agency Ria. The same spokesperson denied later that he said it.
– As it is now is we do not agree, ” he said after Wednesday’s talks in Moscow ended.
was denied also by the us state department.
– If all parties do what’s necessary to prevent Afghanistan being used as a platform for terrorism, we are, if circumstances permit, willing to look at changes in the military presence, said the ministry’s spokesperson.
U.s. and taliban representatives met in Qatar in January, and new meetings are scheduled this month. Right now, there is talks between the taliban and afghan opposition politicians in the Russian capital, Moscow.
Common to both meetings is that the government of Afghanistan is not represented. The U.S. conditions for an agreement is that a ceasefire reached between the government and the taliban movement, which does not approve of president Ashraf Ghanis government.
Afghanistan’s former president Hamid Karzai, one of the opposition politicians involved, says that the issue of foreign forces deployed in the country is top of the agenda. He further says that the talks have been completed to their satisfaction and that the parties are nearing a consensus.
said in his speech to the nation on Tuesday that the talks on Afghanistan has been stepped up, with a cautious hope that the 17-year-long war, soon to reach an end.
at the same time, said Trump that the united states can then “focus on counterterrorism”, which immediately called into question by the taliban movement, whose goal is that there should not be any foreign military presence in the country.
That the talks are being held on Russian initiative, under the Kremlin’s glance, represents a reversal of the trend when it comes to international involvement in Afghanistan. After the then Soviet union’s failed invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russia has largely kept himself in the background, until now.
