Following Trump’s Visit to Afghanistan, Taliban Says Peace Talks Can Resume

Afghanistan’s Taliban group said on Friday it was prepared to restart peace talks with the US, a day after President Donald Trump visited US forces stationed at Bagram Airbase, about 30 miles north of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, and said he thought a ceasefire was possible. Trump’s surprise visit to the troops for the American Thanksgiving holiday was his first to Afghanistan. The US has 13,000 troops stationed in the country and its NATO allies have thousands more, 18 years after a US-led coalition invaded following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 on New York and Washington. About 2,400 US soldiers have died in the Afghanistan conflict. “The Taliban wants to make a deal and we are meeting with them,” Trump said after his arrival on Thursday. On Friday, a spokesman for the hardline Islamist group, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the group was “ready to restart the talks” that collapsed earlier this year. Trump canceled negotiations in September after the militant group claimed responsibility for an attack in Kabul that killed 12 people, including a US soldier.