US Signs Peace Deal With Taliban, Will Withdraw All Troops If Taliban Keeps Commitments

https://twitter.com/TOLOnews/status/1233743305445384194

The United States signed a peace deal with the Taliban Saturday that would end America’s longest war, if the group keeps its commitments.

Under the deal, the U.S. would reduce deployment numbers in Afghanistan from 13,000 to 8,600 over the next several months. The U.S. will withdraw completely within 14 months if the Taliban holds to the deal’s commitments of controlling terrorism.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally oversaw the signing of the deal in Doha, Qatar, where U.S. negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad signed the deal with Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

“This country is not in the best shape after 40 years; they’ve been suffering from conflict. If we ripped everybody out overnight it would, almost in a certain sense, threaten everything we’ve done,” one senior Trump administration official familiar with the deal said.

The officials emphasized to reporters on background that the troop withdrawals will happen “if and only if” the Taliban hold up their end of the deal.

Indeed, the signing only took place after the Taliban proved willing and capable of minimizing violence under the reduction in violence agreement signed earlier in February.

Among the officials’ top priorities was ensuring that a U.S. withdrawal didn’t result in a power vacuum, as it had under the Obama administration, leading to the rise of ISIS.

“If this all blows up that’s unfortunate, but fine, we’ll just start killing them again,” one official said…….