WEB DESK
US President Donald Trump has ruled out the idea of negotiations with the Taliban, condemning the militant group for a series of recent deadly blasts and pledging to finish what the US has to finish.
Trump’s comments come as he began meeting at the White House with members of the United Nations Security Council, appeared to dampen prospects for the revival of peace talks with the Taliban.
Trump told reporters that he does not think that the US is prepared to talk right now. It is a whole different fight over there. They are killing people left and right.
Trump last year sent more US troops to Afghanistan and ordered an increase in air strikes and other assistance to Afghan forces. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said the strategy was working and pushing the insurgents closer to peace talks.
But that was before a Taliban suicide bomber killed more than 100 people and wounded at least 235 in Kabul on Saturday, an attack that followed a Taliban siege of the city’s Intercontinental Hotel and other acts of violence.
Afghanistan’s U.N. Ambassador Mahmoud Saikal told Reuters yesterday that fighting needed to continue against certain elements of the Taliban.