ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s prime minister says that America’s accelerated troop exit from Afghanistan has left Washington with no “bargaining power” for arranging a peace deal between warring Afghans.
“I think the U.S. has really messed it up in Afghanistan,” Imran Khan said in an interview with PBS NewsHour aired on Tuesday night.
Khan stressed that the United States and NATO allies had about 150,000 troops in Afghanistan and that was the time when they ought to go for a political solution rather than trying to militarily end the war with the Taliban insurgency there.
“But once they had reduced the troops to barely 10,000, and then, when they gave an exit date, the Taliban thought they had won. And so, therefore, it was very difficult for now to get them (the Taliban) to compromise,” he told the American broadcaster.
President Joe Biden said earlier this month that “We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build. And it’s the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”
The Taliban has captured vast areas across Afghanistan, including key trade routes with neighboring countries, since U.S.-led foreign troops officially began leaving the country in early May.
The international military drawdown has largely been completed and all American as well as allied troops will have left Afghanistan by the end of August under orders from Biden amid fears the Taliban could regain control of the war-ravaged country.
“Here were the U.S. for two decades in Afghanistan trying to force a military solution. The reason why we are in this position now is because the military solution failed,” Khan said.
U.S. and Afghan officials have long accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban to use sanctuaries in the neighboring country to direct attacks inside Afghanistan, charges Islamabad denies.
