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Trump speaks on the phone with Putin in the White House in January 2017.
- President Donald Trump said he conducted a phone call with the co-founder of the Taliban on Tuesday, which he described as a "a very good talk."
- "It is a pleasure to talk to you," Trump said, according to the Taliban. "You are a tough people and have a great country, and I understand that you are fighting for your homeland."
- On Monday, a motorcycle bomb killed at least three people and injured 11 near a soccer game in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban has said it is resuming attacks in response to the Afghan government's unwillingness to immediately release its prisoners.
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President Donald Trump said he conducted a phone call with the co-founder of the Taliban on Tuesday, one in which he described as a "a very good talk."
"We don't want violence," Trump said to reporters at the White House on Tuesday. "We will see what happens."
Trump's confirmation came shortly after the Taliban released their own statement claiming that they had spoken with him for 35 minutes.
"It is a pleasure to talk to you," Trump said, according to the Taliban. "You are a tough people and have a great country, and I understand that you are fighting for your homeland."
The Taliban leader, Mullah Baradar, was previously arrested in Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan during the US invasion. He was released in 2018 and has taken the lead in US-Taliban negotiations.
The call comes three days after the US and Taliban signed an agreement aiming to bring peace to the war-torn country by the withdrawal US forces. The partial-truce appears to have hit a road bump after it was predicated on the release of 1,000 Afghan security-forces prisoners in exchange for 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the Afghan government, which Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani said he did not agree to.
"There is no commitment to releasing 5,000 prisoners," Ghani said, adding that the condition "cannot be a prerequisite for talks."
The Taliban responded by resuming attacks against Afghan government forces and claiming "our operations will continue as normal."
The Islamist organization stipulated that it would not attack "foreign forces," which ostensibly includes US troops. On Monday, a motorcycle bomb killed at least three people and injured 11 near a soccer game in eastern Afghanistan. No group has taken responsibility yet.
Despite the impasse in the agreement, Trump said that US troops would be vacating the country "immediately" starting Saturday. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said that roughly 4,000 troops from the country would leave within 135 days, and that the remaining 9,000 would be leaving in 14 months.