US President Donald Trump has declared Afghan peace talks with the Taliban dead.

Addressing reporters at the White House on September 9 Trump said:” They’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead. They thought they had to kill people in order to put themselves in a little better negotiating position. When they did that, they killed 12 people, one happened to be a great American soldier. We have hit the Taliban harder in the last four days that they’ve been hit in over 10 years. So that’s the way it is.”

In a separate report, US Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, said during a visit to Afghanistan that the Taliban overplayed its hand in peace negotiations by carrying out a spate of high-profile attacks, including one that killed a U.S. soldier last week.

“I think they overplayed their hand,” McKenzie said. “They misjudged the character of the American people. I think they misjudged the character of the president of the United States.”

“We’re certainly not going to sit still and let them carry out some self-described race to victory. That’s not going to happen,” McKenzie told a group of reporters travelling with him during a stop at Bagram Airfield in northeastern Afghanistan.

Arezo News Website – Humayun Salimi