Afghan Gov’t Preparing for Whatever Decision US Takes on Troop Pullout, Official Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Ksenia Shakalova - The Afghan government believes that only the United States can decide when to pull troops from the country and leave Kabul in charge of its own security, a senior presidential adviser told Sputnik on Thursday.

“We, as the Afghan government, are trying to make sure that we are on our feet, that our forces are defending out people. So, the decision of withdrawal is of the United States, not us,” Nader Nadery said in Moscow.

US President Joe Biden said Wednesday that the withdrawal could still happen by May 1 but warned that meeting the deadline would be “tough.” The Taliban militancy reacted by threatening the US with consequences if it failed to stick to the agreed timeline.

Nadery, an Afghan government negotiator at the Moscow conference on Afghan peace, noted that the US troop withdrawal was conditions-based. The US and NATO are considering whether conditions set in the Doha agreement have been met.

US President Biden previously stated in an interview with ABC News that withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan by the 1 May deadline would be "tough", although doable. The deadline, which was supposed to mark the full withdrawal of the remaining 2,500 US servicemen in the country, could be postponed to a slightly later date, Biden stressed. 

On 29 February 2020, the US and the Taliban (a terrorist organisation banned in Russia) struck a deal stipulating the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for certain steps by the Taliban. The organisation vowed to end its attacks against US forces and engage in peace talks with Kabul.