07 February 2019•Update: 07 February 2019
By Shadi Khan Saif
KABUL, Afghanistan
The top U.S. Envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad rejected the Taliban claim on Thursday asserting no troop withdrawal timetable for Afghanistan exists yet.
“In recent days, I’ve heard some individual Taliban officials claim we have a troop withdrawal timetable for Afghanistan...to be clear, no troop withdrawal timetable exists,” he said in a tweet.
On the sidelines of a two-day conference in Moscow earlier this week between the Taliban and a number of Afghan officials, excluding the Kabul government, Abdul Salam Hanafi, a member of the Taliban delegation, claimed the U.S. has promised to take out half of its estimated 14,000 troops from Afghanistan by April.
The Taliban’s denial to acknowledge and meet the Kabul government remains a challenge in the peace process.
