Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Wednesday said it hoped for a “new chapter” in relations with the United States after Donald Trump’s presidential election victory.
The government hopes the future Trump administration “will take realistic steps toward concrete progress in relations between the two countries and both nations will be able to open a new chapter of relations”, foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said in a post on X.
He underscored that during former president Trump’s first term in power he presided over a peace deal with the Taliban that paved the way for the US withdrawal in 2021 “after which the 20 year occupation ended”.
The Doha agreement was signed on February 29, 2020, in the Gulf state of Qatar between the Taliban and the United States under Trump, but excluded Afghanistan’s then-ruling government.
Republicans have hammered Trump’s successor, current President Joe Biden, for the chaos during the withdrawal, which saw the deaths of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport and the near-immediate retaking of the capital by the Taliban.
