Peace Talks With Taliban Are Dead: Trump

“They’re dead. They’re dead. As far as I’m concerned, they’re dead,” Mr. Trump said when he was asked about the talks with the Taliban. 

Mr. Trump said his administration is “looking at” whether to proceed with troop reductions that had been one element of the preliminary deal with the Taliban struck by the US peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad.

“We’d like to get out, but we’ll get out at the right time,” he said.

Mr. Trump and the Taliban are blaming each other for the collapse of nearly a year of US-Taliban negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

Mr. Khalilzad held nine rounds of talks with the Taliban negotiators in Doha, Qatar, since last October. 

Early hours of Tuesday, Mr. Trump said in a series of tweets that “over the last four days, we have been hitting our enemy harder than at any time in the last ten years”.

He rejected the reports which say he overruled the US Vice President and various advisers on a potential Camp David meeting with the Taliban.

This comes after Mr. Trump called off negotiations with the Taliban on Sept. 2 following a deadly bombing claimed by the group in Kabul.