US presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar is open to keeping a limited American military presence in Afghanistan.
“You could always have training footprints and people working there ready to go if there is a complete upsurge,” Klobuchar said in an interview with CBS News Sunday. “But I think that you have to make sure that this country can function on their own.”
Klobuchar, who is a Democratic senator, however, supports withdrawing most of US forces from Afghanistan.
“We have people that now are deploying that weren’t even born when we got into Afghanistan,” Klobuchar said on Sunday.
The US currently has about 14,000 troops in Afghanistan and their withdrawal is one of key issues in ongoing peace talks with the Taliban.
Klobuchar stressed that the US government needs to secure a lasting and balanced agreement with the Taliban that ensures the recent social and political reforms in Afghanistan continue.
“You want to make sure a lot of the gains we made with women in government and the democracy gains that we made in Afghanistan stay the same,” she said. “But yes, I think we need to start bringing our troops home.”
