U.S. officials are trying to push forward Taliban peace talks, despite Afghanistan's president resisting a promised prisoner swap and Taliban fighters stepping up attacks on Afghan security forces.
Despite declaring the upsurge in violence"unacceptable," Pompeo did not insist it end altogether."It's time to move forward. It's time to reduce violence. It's time to sit down and talk," he said.
Asked during Congressional testimony this week about the Taliban's renewed violence, joint chiefs chairman Gen. Mark Milley made clear he did not consider it a deal breaker.toldPompeo, for his part, went so far as to hail efforts to reduce violence that he said were being made by the insurgency's leaders."We still have confidence," he said Thursday,"that the Taliban leadership was working to deliver on its commitments.
"If the Taliban are not going to lower violence, that causes a risk to this agreement," Gen. Scott Miller "Those aren't remotely inconsistent," Pompeo declared when asked about the apparent discrepancy regarding a prisoner swap between the documents the U.S. signed with the Taliban and the declaration it made in Kabul."These were heavily negotiated documents. All the parties understand that it's time for prisoner exchanges to take place."
"The Taliban understood it as a commitment by the United States to get the prisoners released. That is what they're standing firm," says Rubin."The United States is standing by the literal meaning of the words, but trying to persuade the [Afghan] government. It is ambiguous in a way that diplomatic documents are often ambiguous."
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