On US holiday Thanksgiving, President Donald Trump has arrived in Afghanistan for an unannounced troop visit. In addition to soldiers Trump met at the Bagram Air Base and the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
There is no other place where he would rather spend the holiday, Trump said on the military base north of Kabul during a speech broadcast by Fox News. It was Trump's first trip to the country since taking office.
Officially it was announced that Trump would spend Thanksgiving in Florida, where he wanted to speak with members of the military in a telephone conference. Trump attended a Thanksgiving dinner with the armed forces and also delivered food and cakes to the soldiers themselves.
Trump: Peace talks with the Taliban resumed
In a speech to the troops, Trump said his government had resumed peace talks with the Taliban. "The Taliban want an agreement," the US president told journalists. The US had insisted in the previous talks on the fact that there is a ceasefire after the US troop withdrawal. However, the Taliban rejected that, Trump said. "Now they want a truce," he added.
Trump had declared the peace negotiations with the Taliban, which started about a year ago, "dead" after a series of attacks on the radical Islamic militia in September. The talks focused on the conditions for a partial withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. In return, the Taliban should renounce the al Qaeda terrorist network, fight the Islamic State (IS) jihadist militia, and initiate direct negotiations with the government in Kabul. By the end of September, the Taliban had agreed to sit down with the US again.
Eleven months ago, President Trump had made his first military visit to combat troops abroad in Iraq. He traveled with his wife Melania at Christmas to the soldiers stationed there. Last week, US Vice President Mike Pence traveled to Iraq on an unannounced visit.