Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban negotiation team, explained to reporters in Moscow late last week that if American troops were to linger past the deadline, “it will be a kind of violation of the agreement.”
“That violation would not be from our side. … Their violation will have a reaction,” he continued.
The warning appeared a day after meeting with senior Afghan government negotiators and international observers to attempt to jump-start a stalled peace process to stop Afghanistan’s decades of war.
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Throughout the Trump administration, the United States and the Taliban struck an agreement last year. As part of the agreement, the United States announced it would withdraw 4,400 of its 13,000 troops in the short term, with the rest leaving by May 1.
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Trump denounced what he described as America’s “endless wars” and praised the deal in fulfilling his mission of withdrawing troops from one of those conflicts.
The United States has had troops in Afghanistan since late 2001.
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A Pentagon official told members of Congress in September 2020 that the military was making arrangements for a full retreat by May of this year, if the conditions of the agreement were reached. Those included a reduction in violence from the Taliban.
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But the group has been accused of many attacks over the past year, casting the complete drawdown in doubt.
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U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, speaking to reporters in Kabul on March 21, explained that the process of evaluating whether the conditions have been met is still ongoing.
“I don’t care to comment on that. And I won’t comment on that. But what I will say is that it’s obvious that the level of violence remains pretty high in the country,” he continued. “We’d really like to see that violence come down. And I think if it does come down, it can begin to set the conditions for, you know, some really fruitful diplomatic work.”
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Setting a particular end date for the engagement is up to President Joe Biden, Austin stated.
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Biden announced last week that it will be “tough” for the United States to reach the May 1 deadline. Yet he further said that if the deadline is extended, it wouldn’t be by a “lot longer.”
A statement issued by the presidential palace on the meeting between Austin and Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani announced both sides denounced the increase in violence in Afghanistan. There was no mention of the May 1 deadline.
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