The Taliban on Sunday said that President Trump’s decision to call off a secret meeting that he had scheduled with the terror group’s leaders at Camp David “will lead to more losses to the US.”
“Now that US President Trump has announced the suspension of negotiations with the Islamic Emirate, this would not harm anyone else but the Americans themselves,” the Taliban said in a statement. “This will further harm their credibility and will show their anti-peace stance in more clear way.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the US “anti-peace stance will be exposed to the world” and that “losses to lives and assets will increase” now that the talks with the terror leaders are off.
“This will lead to more losses to the US,” Mujahid said.
The failed negotiation talks — which were planned to take place at Camp David on Sunday — were first announced by President Trump in a tweet on Saturday night and were then confirmed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as being officially off.
“For the time being they are,” Pompeo said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Pompeo added that Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation at the State Department Zalmay Khalilzad had been ordered home in the wake of the decision. It comes following a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Thursday that left a US Army sergeant dead.
Nearly a dozen former US ambassadors came forward last week and warned that Afghanistan could become engulfed in “total civil war” should Trump withdraw all US forces from the region. Pompeo has insisted that this won’t happen and that there won’t be a premature withdrawal.
“President Trump made clear we’re not just going to withdraw because there’s a timeline,” Pompeo said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“We’re only going to reduce our forces when certain conditions are met,” he added.
With Post wires
