WASHINGTON - The Taliban has not kept up their commitments agreed to in their deal with the United States, a top American general has said.
“While the Taliban have been scrupulous about not attacking U.S. or coalition forces, in fact, the violence against the Afghans is higher than it's been in quite a while,” General Kenneth McKenzie, chief of US Central Command, said in an interview with Voice of America.
He said before there could be a greatly reduced US presence in Afghanistan, intra-Afghan talks are needed needed to start and the US would need to be assured that the Taliban would not host Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaida terrorist groups, potentially allowing them to carry out attacks on the West.
“Right now it is simply unclear to me that the Taliban has taken any positive steps in that, in those areas,” McKenzie said.
The general said that Taliban still have time to change. “I don't know that they will. I don't know that they won’t. I do know that we're going to watch very closely. It will be indicated by actions that they take,” he said.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Wednesday that report of Russian bounty to kill US troops in Afghanistan doesn’t reflect accurately on what has transpired.
He, however, said Russia has used proxies in Afghanistan and US has responded to threats.
“We have done everything we can to make sure we had the intelligence collection collected appropriately, that we have responded to those threats of outside actors whether it was Iranians, the Russians, the Pakistanis, or other outside non-state actors who were funding and underwriting the Taliban putting Americans at risk,” Pompeo said. (1TV NEWS)