Peace Talks with Taliban Are ‘Dead’
VOA News By Steve Herman
VOA’s Afghanistan Service and White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
WHITE HOUSE — U.S. President Donald Trump is denying he overruled Vice President Mike Pence and other administration officials about hosting the Taliban at Camp David for peace talks.
«I took my own advice,» Trump told reporters Monday. «We had a meeting scheduled. It was my idea, and it was my idea to terminate it. I didn’t discuss it with anybody else.»
The Taliban, according to Trump, «are telling people they made a big mistake» by carrying out an attack last Thursday in Kabul that killed a U.S. Army soldier and 11 other people.
As a result, «as far as I’m concerned, they’re dead,» Trump said of the discussions with the militants in Afghanistan.