Trump administration issues sharply worded statement defending U.S. negotiator.
By Karen DeYoung Karen DeYoung Associate editor and senior national security correspondent Email Bio Follow March 14 at 7:12 PM Relations between the Trump administration and the government of Afghanistan fell to a new low this week, as they exchanged public accusations of bad faith and exposed deep differences over U.S. negotiations with the Taliban.
President Trump has said he wants to withdraw all 14,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a vow that his top military and civilian aides recently persuaded him to tie to progress in the Taliban negotiations. By most measures, Taliban control of Afghan territory has increased since then. In the summer, the administration announced the appointment of Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to both Afghanistan and Iraq during the George W. Bush administration, as Trump’s special adviser on Afghanistan.
President Ashraf Ghani’s government, already livid from what it said was a failure by a “disrespectful” Khalilzad to even provide them with a comprehensive briefing on the talks, hit the roof, placing most of the blame on Khalilzad. As it directs its ire toward Khalilzad, Ghani’s government seemed to be trying to avoid blaming Trump.
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