WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said talks with the Taliban are off for now and the U.S. is bringing home the top diplomat working in Afghanistan on the heels of President Trump cancelling a secret meeting at Camp David with Taliban and Afghan leaders.
“For the time being they are,” Pompeo said on “Fox News Sunday,” when asked by host Chris Wallace if the talks were off.Pompeo added that Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation at the State Department Zalmay Khalilzad was coming home.
On Saturday night, Trump surprised the world by revealing he had planned to meet with both the president of Afghanistan and “major Taliban leaders” at Camp David on Sunday.
“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 wrote on Twitter. “I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they only made it worse!”
“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyways,” Trump continued. “How many more decades are they willing to fight?”
Pompeo echoed Trump when he talked about the attack, which killed American soldier Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, a 34-year-old from Puerto Rico.
“In the end, the Taliban overreached,” Pompeo said. “They forgot America is always going to protect its interests.”
“We will continue to apply the appropriate pressure to make sure we’re never struck with terror again from Afghanistan,” the secretary of state added.
Pompeo was quizzed both on the appropriateness of the timing of such a summit – just days before the 18th anniversary of 9/11 – and the setting, as Camp David played an important role when President George W. Bush was planning how to respond to the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Pompeo sidestepped the timing question.
“We know the history of Camp David and we reflected on that as we were thinking about how to deliver for the American people,” Pompeo said when asked by Wallace about the summit being held so close to Sept. 11.
Pompeo said Trump wanted to “look them in the eye.” “We concluded this was a perfectly appropriate place,” Pompeo added.
On “Meet the Press,” Pompeo gave NBC’s Chuck Todd a similar answer.
“Camp David has a long history, an important history,” Pompeo said. “And it’s also had an important role in complex peace negotiations, sometimes with some pretty bad actors as you know, Chuck.”