US President Donald Trump, in a surprising move, has announced on Twitter that he was cancelling peace negotiations with the Taliban. The US President also revealed that he was set to meet Afghan President Ghani and senior Taliban officials at Camp David on Sunday.
However, after the Taliban claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack that also killed a US solider in Afghanistan, the US President announced that both the peace talks as well as the Camp David meeting with the Taliban had been cancelled.
The move comes as a surprise as US peace negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad had announced, on Monday, that both the US and the Taliban had reached a peace deal “in principle”.
In his tweets, the US President wrote:
Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people.
I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?
