President Donald Trump on Saturday tweeted about canceled meetings with Taliban leaders and the president of Afghanistan. According to Trump, the meetings were secret but he decided to cancel after learning about an attack in Kubal that killed an American soldier.
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..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
....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....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
....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?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
The meetings were scheduled for Monday, September 9th, just shy of the 18th anniversary of 9/11. Additional details about the meeting are unknown at this time.
The Trump administration has spent months negotiating with Taliban leaders in Qatar. U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said a tentative agreement had been the United States and Taliban leaders. The United States would close several bases and remove 5,000 troops over the next five months in exchange for peace, The Hill reported.
The terrorist group took responsibility for a bombing in Kabul on Monday that killed 12, including one American soldier, which Trump referenced in his tweets.
One of President Trump's major campaign promises has been to pull troops out of the Middle East.
“We’re going to be talking to them. We’re continuing to talk. We’ve been there 19 years,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.
“We’d like to get at least a big proportion of them [service members] home,” Trump said. “We also have NATO troops there. We’d like to bring a big portion of them home. So we’re talking to the Taliban; we’re talking to the government. We’ll see what happens.”