Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Tuesday that the administration’s new Afghanistan strategy is designed to send a message to Taliban insurgents: You have no path to victory here.
“This entire effort is intended to put pressure on the Taliban to have them understand: you will not win a battlefield victory,” Tillerson said at a State Department briefing. “We may not win one, but neither will you. At some point, we have to come to the negotiating table and find a way to bring this to an end.”
In a statement released by the department after the president’s address on Monday night, Tillerson had said that, “We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions.”
He clarified that statement during his briefing:
Tillerson also echoed President Donald Trump’s comments made a day earlier emphasizing the importance of engaging Pakistan in an attempt to bring the United States’ longest-running conflict to a close.
“There’s been an erosion in trust because we have witnessed terrorist organizations being given safe haven inside of Pakistan to plan and carry out attacks against U.S. servicemen, U.S. officials, disrupting peace efforts inside of Afghanistan,” Tillerson said. “Pakistan in particular can play an important role here certainly in delivering the Taliban to the negotiating table.”
