VOA’s Afghanistan Service and White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump is denying he overruled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about hosting the Taliban at Camp David for peace talks.”I took my own advice,” Trump told reporters Monday. “We had a meeting scheduled. It was my idea, and it was my idea to terminate it. I didn’t discuss it with anybody else.”In a tweet, Pence backed up Trump.That’s Absolutely Right Mr. President. More Fake News! The Dishonest Media never contacted our office before running with this story and if they had, we would have told them I FULLY support your decision. The president also stated that U.S. forces have “hit the Taliban harder in the last four days than they’ve been in over 10 years.”U.S. news outlets reported that Pence and the administration’s national security adviser, John Bolton, internally at the White House voiced objections to holding the meeting at Camp David.A White House meeting with the Taliban would have been “a step too far,” said Trump, adding that he thought “Camp David would be good, and I still do.”U.S. involvement in Afghanistan is the longest war in U.S. history. It was started with U.S. military efforts to wipe out al-Qaida terrorist training grounds protected by the Taliban that were used to launch the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. The 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attack is Wednesday.’Major blow’ to peace processThe Taliban say American troops “will suffer more than anyone else” with Trump’s abrupt cancellation of the peace talks.
Pompeo: Trump Correctly Called Off Taliban Talks Because of Its Terrorist Attacks video player.
FILE – Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wy., center, speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Nov. 14, 2018.Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was in office at the time of the 2001 terrorist attack, said, “Camp David is where America’s leaders met to plan our response after al-Qaida, supported by the Taliban, killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11. No member of the Taliban should set foot there. Ever.”Sen. Bob Menendez, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said of the meeting, “It’s another example of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, which is a high-wire act that ultimately is focused on Trump as a persona, but not in the strategic, methodical effort of creating peace.”Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Air Force pilot who served in Iraq and Afghanistan before winning a seat in the House of Representatives, said on Twitter, “Never should leaders of a terrorist organization that hasn’t renounced 9/11 and continue in evil be allowed in our great country. NEVER. Full stop.”Peace talksNegotiators for the U.S. and the Taliban have held nearly a year of peace talks.FILE – U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad attends the Intra Afghan Dialogue talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, July 8, 2019.Before he was ordered to return home from the region, U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said his team of negotiators had drawn up a draft framework agreement that, if approved by Trump, would allow 5,000 American troops to leave five military bases in the country within 135 days.”We have a very specific number,” but he was not going to publicly reveal it at this time, Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn before boarding the Marine One helicopter.After Trump called off the Camp David meetings, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said his government is conditionally ready to continue peace negotiations.”Our way is clear. We have chosen sustainable and dignified peace, and we will not go back,” he said. “Negotiations [with the Taliban] are impossible without a cease-fire.”Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan’s chief executive officer, blames the Taliban for the deadlock in the peace process and says because of them, the opportunity for the restoration of peace has been lost.”Unfortunately, today we are as far away from peace as we were in past years,” he said.
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