Afghanistan recoils at Trump’s comments about destroying it

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan demanded a clarification Tuesday of President Donald Trump’s comments a day earlier that he could have had the country “wiped off the face of the earth” but did not “want to kill 10 million people.”

In a sharply worded statement, the government of President Ashraf Ghani noted that Afghanistan expected its relationship with the United States to be “grounded on common interests and mutual respect.”

Trump made the comments Monday during an Oval Office meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan. The president said he was referring to prepared military plans for Afghanistan, adding, “I could win that war in a week.”

Ghani’s government, facing a bruising reelection campaign this fall, indicated that it did not intend to let the matter drop.

“The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan will keep the Afghan public posted on the issue,” its statement said.

Ghani has expended political capital by embracing Trump’s South Asia policy in the face of opposition in a complex region with competing rivalries. The U.S. president’s comments Monday seemed, to many Afghans, to be walking back his commitments to their country.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department Tuesday.

While Americans may be accustomed to provocative statements from Trump, Afghans tend to interpret any comment by a U.S. president about Afghanistan as an official declaration of policy.

In the meeting Monday, Trump said Khan would help negotiate peace in Afghanistan and that Pakistan would help the United States “extricate ourselves” from the conflict.

Former President Hamid Karzai, who during his tenure had a strained relationship with the United States over civilian casualties caused by U.S. forces, said that Trump had insulted all Afghans.

In a statement Tuesday, Karzai said that the U.S. president’s comments confirmed the suspicions of many Afghans that the United States had made “secret deals” with Pakistan to undermine Afghanistan’s sovereignty. Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of providing safe havens to the Taliban.

Karzai added that the United States “is not respecting our lives and human dignity at all.”

Rahmatullah Nabil, a former Afghan intelligence chief and a current candidate for president, noted that Trump had made no mention of continuing the United States’ commitment to Afghanistan.

“Does this mean,” Nabil wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, that “other US officials are misleading AFG about long term commitments?”

Rangin Dadfar Spanta, a national security adviser for Karzai, told reporters Tuesday that Trump’s words were “a terrible, racist political message.

“There is no need to brag that you can kill 10 million Afghans,” he added.

The State Department announced Tuesday that the U.S. representative to peace talks with the Taliban, Zalmay Khalilzad, had returned to the region to prepare for the next round of talks with the militant group.

In a Twitter message Tuesday, Khalilzad appeared to try to repair the damage from Trump’s remarks by describing an “enduring” U.S. relationship with Afghanistan.

“I’m arriving in Kabul today, focused on achieving an enduring peace that ends the war, ensures terrorists do not use Afghanistan to threaten the US, honors the sacrifices that US, our allies & Afghans made, and cements an enduring relationship w/Afghanistan,” he posted.