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Trump Says He Canceled Secret Afghan Peace Talks

Steve Herman

   John Walker of VOA's Afghanistan service contributed to this report.

   WHITE HOUSE -- U.S. President Donald Trump says he has called off
   secret talks that were to be held Sunday at Camp David with Afghanistan
   President Ashraf Ghani and "major Taliban leaders."

     Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and,
     separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly
     meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United
     States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage,
     they admitted to..
     -- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) [1]September 7, 2019

   Trump, in a series of Saturday evening tweets, explained he immediately
   canceled plans for the meeting at the presidential retreat in the state
   of Maryland following a car bomb blast in Kabul that killed 12 people,
   including an American soldier.

   Trump said the Taliban carried out the attack "in order to build false
   leverage."

   The president added that if the Taliban "cannot agree to a cease-fire
   during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12
   innocent people, then it probably doesn't have the power to negotiate a
   meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to
   fight."

   Negotiations to reach a peace agreement have been underway for months
   between U.S. diplomats and the Taliban, who have rejected calls for a
   cease-fire.

   Stunning announcement

   Trump's tweeted revelation of the planned secret talks and his
   cancellation of them stunned analysts.

   "For months, U.S. negotiators had worked in painstaking fashion to get
   a deal. They were on the cusp of one. And now, seemingly, a single
   Trump tweet has yanked the rug from under them," said Michael Kugelman,
   deputy director of the Asia program and South Asia senior associate at
   The Wilson Center.

   Kugelman tells VOA he does not think that talks are completely dead.

   "Trump is a savvy negotiator and this may well be a ploy of sorts,
   meant to intimidate the Taliban and get it to scale down violence and
   come back to the negotiating table in a weaker position," he said.

References

   1. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

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