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MONITORING (SW) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he had called off peace talks with the Taliban over a recent deadly bombing in the Afghan capital Kabul.
He said Taliban leaders and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani were separately coming to the U.S. on Saturday night to meet him at Camp David, Maryland, but Trump said he had canceled the meeting. "Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people," Trump said in a tweet.
Taliban claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombing in the east of Kabul.
The US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban in the autumn of 2001, because the militants had given safe haven to the al-Qaeda network to plan the attacks on the US on 11 September. A source from the Taliban's political office in Doha told the BBC that the group was set to hold an "urgent internal meeting" to discuss Mr Trump's decision.
Trump's announcement came days after top U.S. peace negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad said the U.S. had reached an agreement in principle with the Taliban.
In an interview with Afghanistan's Tolo News, he said the U.S. forces would vacate five military bases in Afghanistan in the initial 135 days after signing of the deal.
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