(Video) Rajya Sabha TV (RSTV) The Big Picture: US, Taliban Talks Trumped

Topic: US, Taliban Talks Trumped

Guest:

Alok Bansal, (Director, India Foundation)
Ashok Sajjanhar, (Former Ambassador)
Rana Banerji, (Former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat)
Arvind Gupta, (Director, Vivekananda International Foundation)

Topic Description:

U.S. President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced on Saturday that he had canceled peace talks with the Taliban’s “major leaders” at the Camp David, Maryland, presidential compound after the group claimed responsibility for a Kabul attack last week that killed a U.S. soldier and 11 other people. The United States has recalled U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad to Washington to chart the path forward. Asked on Sunday whether Afghan talks were dead, Pompeo said, “For the time being they are.” U.S. diplomats have been talking with Taliban representatives for months about a plan to withdraw thousands of American troops in exchange for security guarantees by the Taliban. U.S. and Taliban negotiators struck a draft peace deal last week that could have led to a drawdown in U.S. troops from America’s longest war, one of Trump’s foreign policy objectives. Americans will on Wednesday mark the 18th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks that killed more than 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.