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Associated Press

Can the Taliban be trusted? The key question behind Trump's cancelled meeting

September 9, 2019

Former Defence Secretary James Mattis says that when it comes to trying to negotiate an Afghanistan peace deal with the Taliban, the key question is whether they can be trusted.

Mattis cites past US nuclear talks with the Russians, when the American side talked about "trust but verify".

He tells CBS' "Face the Nation" that "I think you want to verify, then trust" in dealing with the Taliban.

Mattis says the US since the Bush administration, has "demanded that they break with al-Qaida" but "they've refused to do so." He also says "we should never forget" that they were behind the September 11 attacks.

President Donald Trump says he was set this weekend to meet at Camp David with leaders of the Taliban. But Trump says he called off that meeting, and a separate one with Afghanistan's president, after a Taliban bombing that killed an American soldier and 11 other people.

What had seemed like an imminent deal to end the war has since unravelled, with Trump and the Taliban blaming each other for the collapse of nearly a year of US - Taliban negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The insurgents are promising more bloodshed. The Afghan government remains mostly on the sidelines of the US effort to end America's longest war. And as Trump's reelection campaign heats up, his quest to withdraw the remaining 14,000 US troops from Afghanistan remains unfulfilled.

Trump's secret plan for high-level meetings at the presidential retreat in Maryland resembled other bold, unorthodox foreign policy initiatives — with North Korea, China and Iran — that the president has pursued that have yet to bear fruit. 

A US official familiar with the Taliban negotiations said the "very closely held" idea of a Camp David meeting was first discussed a week and a half ago when Trump huddled with his national security team and other top advisers to talk about Afghanistan. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Some administration officials, including national security adviser John Bolton, did not back the agreement with the Taliban as it was written, the official said. Bolton does not think the Taliban can be trusted. Bolton advised the president to draw down the US force to 8,600 — enough to counter terror threats — and "let it be" until a better deal could be hammered out, the official said.

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