President Donald Trump says he will ink a peace deal with the Afghan Taliban if negotiating teams from the two sides can conclude final details.
Before leaving for India, Trump told journalists at the White House on Sunday: “We’ve been over there 19 years. We think they want to make a deal. We want to make a deal.”
As part of an understanding reached earlier in the month, the Taliban, American and Afghan forces have already entered a week-long reduction in violence period.
If the Taliban demonstrably scale down operations across Afghanistan for a week, they would clinch a peace agreement with the US by the end of the current month.
The USA Today quoted Trump, a critic of the US military presence in Afghanistan, as saying: “I think it’s going to work out. They’re tired of fighting,” Trump said.
About 13,000 US troops are currently stationed in Afghanistan, training Afghan security forces and conducting counter-terrorism missions.
“Yes, I would put my name on it,” said the president, who arrives in India today (M0nday). He will likely seek New Delhi’s support for the peace process in Afghanistan
