{"id":20494,"date":"2019-09-09T07:12:47","date_gmt":"2019-09-09T07:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=20494"},"modified":"2019-09-09T07:12:47","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T07:12:47","slug":"taliban-more-americans-will-die-if-trump-cancels-peace-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=20494","title":{"rendered":"Taliban: More Americans will die if Trump cancels peace talks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By\u00a0<strong>PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN\u00a0| STARS AND STRIPES<\/strong><br \/><br \/> KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 The Taliban on Sunday warned that more American lives would be lost if President Donald Trump canceled peace talks with them, but said they remained open to continuing with the talks.<br \/><br \/> The group was replying to a series of Trump tweets on Saturday that said a secret meeting with \u201cmajor leaders\u201d of the Taliban at Camp David had been canceled because of an attack by the insurgents that killed an American soldier.<br \/><br \/> \u201cUnfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great, great soldiers and 11 other people,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations.\u201d<br \/><br \/> Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed talks between American and Taliban officials \u2014 which have spanned the past year and resulted in a draft agreement to end America\u2019s longest war \u2014 have been suspended indefinitely and that U.S. forces would continue to put military pressure on the insurgents.<br \/><br \/> \u201cIf the Taliban don\u2019t behave, if they don\u2019t deliver on the commitments that they\u2019ve made to us now for weeks, and in some cases months, the president is not going to reduce the pressure, we\u2019re not going to reduce our support for the Afghan security forces that have fought so hard there in Afghanistan,\u201d Pompeo said in an interview with CNN.<br \/><br \/> The Taliban said the response by the U.S. showed a lack of \u201cpatience and experience,\u201d and highlighted that neither side had committed to a cease-fire while the agreement was being finalized.<br \/><br \/> \u201cThis will lead to more losses for the U.S.,\u201d Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement. \u201cThis has damaged the U.S. the most, its credibility will be affected, its anti-peace stance will be exposed to the world.\u201d<br \/><br \/> However, Mujahid said the insurgents remained open to continuing talks.<br \/><br \/> \u201cWe will stay committed if the path of negotiation is chosen instead of fighting,\u201d he said.<br \/><br \/> The comments came after American envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said Sept. 2 that the U.S. had reached an agreement \u201cin principle\u201d with the Taliban that only needed Trump\u2019s approval to be finalized. Under the agreement, international forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan in phases in return for Taliban promises not to allow terrorists to use the country to launch attacks on the U.S. and its allies.<br \/> Many experts have expressed concerns over the deal, of which most details have been kept secret.<br \/><br \/> Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News last month that withdrawing too many U.S. troops from Afghanistan could lead to another 9\/11. A group of former U.S. ambassadors issued a joint statement on Tuesday, warning the country could descend into \u201ctotal civil war\u201d if international forces withdrew too soon.<br \/><br \/> The Afghan government, which has been excluded from the U.S.-Taliban talks, expressed similar concerns after it was shown the draft deal in recent days.<br \/><br \/> The details of the agreement \u201cwere not convincing,\u201d Afghan presidential spokesman Sediq Seddiqi told reporters on Sunday. He refused to say what impact Trump\u2019s decision would have on the peace process, but said, \u201cThe recent attacks in Afghanistan by the Taliban show that the Taliban are not committed to any peace effort.\u201d<br \/><br \/> The attack that prompted Trump to cancel talks with the Taliban happened Thursday, when the group detonated a car bomb in Kabul\u2019s diplomatic quarter.<br \/><br \/> Sgt. 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, was killed in the attack along with a Romanian soldier and 10 civilians. Ortiz\u2019s death came less than a week after Master Sgt. Michael Riley, 32, and Sgt. James Johnston, 24, were killed by the Taliban in southern Uruzgan province.<br \/><br \/> \u201cWhat kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn\u2019t, they only made it worse!\u201d Trump tweeted. \u201cIf they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don\u2019t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?\u201d<br \/><br \/> <strong>wellman.phillip@stripes.com<br \/> Twitter:\u00a0@pwwellman<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By: <strong>www.stripes.com<\/strong><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN\u00a0| STARS AND STRIPES KABUL, Afghanistan \u2014 The Taliban on Sunday warned that more American lives would be lost if President Donald Trump canceled peace talks with them, but said they remained open to continuing with the talks. The group was replying to a series of Trump tweets on Saturday that said a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}