Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan Monday called the ongoing negotiations between the United States and the Taliban “encouraging” and said they might pave the way for more serious planning for a gradual draw-down of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Shanahan made the brief remarks to reporters as he welcomed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to the Pentagon.
“We might get a chance to talk about that this week,” Shanahan said when questioned whether there was planning underway to reduce the U.S. troop commitment to the NATO-led Operation Resolute Support.
“Hopefully later on this week when we get together we can talk about some of the encouraging conversations that are going on with the Taliban,” Shanahan said.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, tweeted over the weekend that six days of talks with Taliban representatives in Qatar “were more productive than they have been in the past” and that “significant progress” was made on vital issues.
Upon arriving in Kabul, Khalilzad told the New York Times an “agreement in principle” has been reached on the framework of a deal in which Taliban would guarantee Afghan territory is never used by terrorists and bring an end to the 17-year-old war.
After briefing the Afghanistan government and other officials on the breakthrough in the talks, Khalilzad tweeted Monday, “Briefed them on the latest round of talks. No one has a monopoly on the diplomacy of peace and all have contributions to make. Good discussions and some new ideas.”
Shanahan said as of today he has not been tasked to draw up plans for the U.S. withdrawal, but that he had been briefed on the outlines of the potential peace accord.
“Really the takeaway right now is it’s encouraging,” Shanahan said, “and we’ll let Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo and the ambassador [Khalilzad] be the spokespersons for that.”
“We are in Afghanistan to create the conditions for a peaceful negotiated solution,” Stoltenberg said. “We will not stay longer than necessary, but we will not leave before we have a situation that enables us to leave or reduce the number of troops without jeopardizing the main goal of our presence and that is to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a safe haven for international terrorists once again.”
