President Joe Biden’s chief of staff cast doubt on the prospect of the United States establishing normal diplomatic relations with the Taliban in either the near or long term.
Ron Klain said Tuesday he is unsure the U.S. would “ever” recognize a Taliban-led government in Afghanistan, where the State Department removed its embassy, relocating diplomatic operations to Qatar.
“I don’t think any time soon,” Klain told host Mehdi Hasan, who asked on his show whether the U.S. would recognize the Taliban as legitimate governors of Afghanistan. “I don’t know if we will ever recognize their government.”
Me: “Will the U.S. be recognizing the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan any time soon?”
White House chief of staff Ron Klain: “I don’t think anytime soon, I don’t know if we will ever recognize their government.”
Some breaking news tonight…pic.twitter.com/KBFCT5Maod
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 1, 2021
“What we know is that the Taliban says they’re going to form a government,” Klain continued during his appearance on the Mehdi Hasan Show on NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service. “We’ll see what that looks like. We’ll see what kind of credentials they present. More importantly, we’ll see what their conduct is.”
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Biden administration and senior military leaders expressed varying measures of suspicion and criticism of the Taliban, which retook power at the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan when the U.S.-backed government collapsed, and have urged the militant group to respect human rights.
Over the course of the U.S.-led evacuation efforts that concluded Tuesday, officials acknowledged the necessity of cooperation and negotiation with Taliban forces to extract U.S. citizens and other allies while asserting the U.S. does not trust the Taliban.
“They’re not good guys, the Taliban. I’m not suggesting that at all. But they have a keen interest,” Biden said during a speech Thursday addressing the terrorist attack that killed 13 U.S. service members. ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken declined to rule out diplomatic involvement with a Taliban-led government but said “our vital national interests” would drive U.S. policy there.
“If we can work in the new Afghan government in a way that helps secure those interests … and in a way that brings greater stability to the country and the region, and that protects the gains of the last two decades, we will do it,” Blinken said Monday.
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Klain’s assessment follows the insistence of one Taliban official that the U.S. should reopen its embassy in Kabul.
“We have communication channels with them, and we expect them to reopen their embassy in Kabul, and we also want to have trade relations with them,” Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday.
