Taliban Ready To Resume Peace Talks After Trump’s Visit To Kabul

This Thanksgiving was a special one for the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Who were visited by and served Turkey day dinner by the President of the United States Donald Trump.

It was Trump’s first visit to Afghanistan since he took office nearly four years ago. The week prior Washington and Kabul made a prisoner swap, raising hopes that peace talks could resume and an 18-year-long war could come to an end.

On Friday the Taliban said they were ready to restart peace talks with the United States.

“We say it has to be a ceasefire and they didn’t want to do a ceasefire and now they want to do a ceasefire, I believe. It will probably work out that way.”

This whole war started after the September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda attacks on US soil. As of today there are about 13,000 U.S. forces and thousands of other NATO troops in Afghanistan.

During the course of the Afghanistan conflict nearly 2,400 U.S. service members have been killed.

In September a draft accord was agreed upon that would remove thousands of American troops in exchange for guarantees. Afghanistan would no longer be used as a base to plot attacks against the United States or its allies.

Zabihullah Mujahid a spokesman for the Islamist insurgent group had this to say; “Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped.”

A senior Taliban commander on conditions of anonymity had this to say;

“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.”

Trump Serving The Troops

(Cover photo courtesy of Reuters UK, videos courtesy of YouTube Fox News and VOA news, source Reuters)