Press Trust of India

Taliban- Govt talks, US banks on Pak support

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Washington: US President Donald Trump hoped that Pakistan will help the US in Afghanistan as peace talks with the Taliban have apparently entered its last phase.
Trump said he had developed a “good chemistry” with the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, whom he met at his Oval Office last week.
“We’re doing very well, as you know, with Pakistan. I met a gentleman who I liked a lot — as you know — last week, from Pakistan. I have a lot of respect for him. We have a good friendship — a good feeling, good chemistry. I think Pakistan will help us, and I think others will get involved,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Responding to a question if the Taliban could be trusted, Trump said “I don’t want to say if they can be trusted or not. Look, history, I would say, is not so good, but they don’t like us much either. But we’ve brought them down; we’ve brought the number of soldiers down very substantially. We are talking to them. We have a lot of advantages making a deal with us.”
“Let’s put this way: We’re more police than anything else, and that’s not for our soldiers,” he added.
“I’ve said — I’ve said it a lot. We could win the war in Pak (sic) — we could win the war, if you look at it — and you can look at it any way you want — we can win the war in Afghanistan in less than a week,” Trump said.
“But I’m not looking to kill 10 million people. I’m not talking nuclear. I’m not talking nuclear. But we’d win that war in less than a week, and I have that as an option, always. But that’s what we’re not looking to do,” asserted the US President.
Meanwhile, reports have emerged that the Trump administration is close to signing an MoU with the Taliban during the upcoming parleys in Doha.
The talks between the two sides assume significance as the MoU is reportedly about the timeframe for the US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan and the guarantees by Taliban of not allowing the Afghan soil to be ever used again by militant groups such as Al Qaeda.
US Special Representative for peace in Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, “visited Islamabad on August 1 and 2 and held discussions with Pakistani leadership on developments in the Afghan peace process,” the US embassy in Islamabad said in a statement.
In his meetings with Prime Minister Imran Khan, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Chief of Army Staff General Javed Bajwa, Khalilzad outlined the positive momentum in the Afghan peace process and the next steps, it said.
“They also discussed the role Pakistan has played in support of the process and additional positive steps Pakistan can take,” the statement said. (PTI)


Press Trust of India

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