U.S. President Joe Biden while addressing the Munich Security Conference on Friday said that the United States strongly supports the Afghanistan peace process.
President Biden’s support for peace talks with the Taliban is one of the few issues he has addressed in line with the efforts of the former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and the State Department under Mike Pompeo.
However, unlike Donald Trump, who was a vocal critic of NATO, he said the U.S. government is fully committed to working with NATO and its other allies in Afghanistan.
“We will continue to adhere to the slogan that we will never allow Afghanistan to once again become a haven for terrorist activities against the United States, its allies and our interests,” Biden said.
The U.S. president also said he would not allow the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) group to be revived and reorganized again.
The remarks by German and U.S. leaders, as well as the new U.S. Secretary of Defense, came on Friday as NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday that the alliance’s defence ministers had spoken about the withdrawal of NATO troops and when they would leave the country.
“At this time, we have not made any final decision on the future of the presence of our forces (in Afghanistan),” Mr Stoltenberg said after attending a virtual meeting with the NATO defence ministers.
“As the May 1 deadline approaches, and in the next few weeks, NATO members and allies will be working together,” he said, referring to the May 1 deadline for the withdrawal of troops. “They are closely consulting and coordinating.”
The NATO Secretary-General also said that violence in Afghanistan has recently increased rather than decreased and that there has been no progress in the peace process.
Mr Stoltenberg added that the Taliban needed to do more to reduce violence and cut ties with terrorist groups.
