On his last day, Trump hails US-Taliban agreement

KABUL (Pajhwok): Outgoing US President Donald Trump termed last year’s peace agreement with the Taliban as one of his achievements and said that he was happy by reducing the number of American troops in Afghanistan.

Trump expressed these views at his farewell ceremony in the White House.  He said at the last year of his tenure, the US signed historic deal with the Taliban which made him able to reduce US troops number in the war-torn country more than any time before.

He said he was happy whatever he did and his administration felt pride for it. He added the US had a president in the past two decades who did not initiate a new war.

President Trump had his last day in the White House and the new President-Elect Joe Biden will begin his tenure from Thursday.

Lately, President Donald Trump , who had pledged to end “America’s forever wars”,  ordered the withdrawal of US deployment from 4,500 to 2,500.

An unidentified US defence official told Reuters last week that about 3,000 US troops remain in Afghanistan. “Since this residual force is too small to counter and contain the Taliban, incoming president Joe Biden  could be compelled to make the domestically unpopular decision to redeploy to Afghanistan thousands of US troops to prevent a Taliban takeover”.

Opposition in the US military to Trump’s withdrawal plan prompted him to fire defence secretary  and senior military commanders last November and replace them with officials and officers who do the president’s bidding.

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