Trump surprises U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan
U.S. president tells troops he’s resumed peace talks with Taliban
U.S. President Donald Trump visited Afghanistan for the first time on Thursday, delivering Thanksgiving greetings to U.S. troops deployed here in the United States’ longest-running war and announcing that he had resumed peace negotiations with the Taliban.
Making an unannounced trip, Trump touched down at 8:30 p.m. local time at Bagram air base — the primary hub for U.S. air operations located outside the capital of Kabul — after secretly departing from Florida in the dark of night. Trump has long wanted to draw down forces in Afghanistan, and he said during a meeting here with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that he had restarted peace talks with the Taliban that he had broken off almost three months ago, and was hopeful of brokering an accord.
“The Taliban wants to make a deal and we’re meeting with them and we’re saying it has to be a ceasefire and they didn’t want to do a ceasefire, and now they do want to do a ceasefire,” Trump said. “I believe it’ll probably work out that way.”
The Trump administration appeared to be on the brink of striking a deal to jump-start the peace process in September, when the president extended and then cancelled an invitation for Taliban representatives to come to Camp David to cement an agreement to reduce U.S. forces.
Addressing about 1,500 military personnel assembled in an aircraft hangar here, Trump said, “We are winning like we haven’t won in a long time.”
He told the crowd he wanted to win the war in Afghanistan, and “we don’t play for ties,” but explained victory would not be achieved on the battlefield, but rather through “a political solution” determined by people in the region.
The president also served turkey to troops in a cafeteria and posed for photos with many of them.
Trump was on the ground at Bagram for about three-andhalf hours after flying there overnight from the United States. His visit was shrouded in secrecy and kept off his public schedule, and aides took extreme security precautions to transport the commander in chief to Afghanistan.
Trump, who had been vacationing with family at his Mara-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., flew from an undisclosed Florida airport after nightfall Wednesday to Joint Base Andrews near Washington, where he boarded Air Force One for the 13-hour flight to Afghanistan.
The president’s aircraft took off without lights and with its cabin window shades drawn shut to preserve secrecy. To limit suspicions about Trump’s whereabouts, White House staff members sent tweets from the president’s Twitter account during the time he was flying.
Air Force One descended and touched down at Bagram in complete darkness, and once on the ground, the president was flanked by combat troops wearing night-vision goggles and bearing rifles.
First lady Melania Trump remained in Florida, and the president was accompanied by a retinue of senior aides, as well as Sen. John Barrasso. He was joined here by Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who already had been travelling in the region.
During Trump’s bilateral meeting with Ghani, he confirmed that he would like to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 8,600, down from about 13,000 currently. “We’ve made tremendous progress and at the same time we’ve been drawing down our troops,” Trump said.