All-Afghan Peace Summit Set for July, But On Taliban Terms
A surprise announcement by President Donald Trump seemed to accelerate the expected time frame for U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan ahead of an all-Afghan peace summit planned for July 7-8 in Qatar. The gathering apparently will be held on Taliban terms as there will be no official Afghan government representation.
That pullout was expected to be announced as part of a time frame being negotiated by Washington's peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who is in the middle of talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
"I've wanted to pull them out. And you know, I have pulled a lot out. We were at 16,000. We're down to about 9,000, which a lot of people don't know," Trump said, according to the transcript of the interview shared with The Associated Press. "So we've reduced the force very substantially in Afghanistan, which I don't talk about very much, and that's okay," Trump added.
According to a senior U.S. defense official, however, there are still close to 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan - a number that has remained fairly steady for many months