Violence must stop before peace deal: Pompeo

KABUL must give “demonstrable evidence of their will and capacity to reduce violence and the violence must stop before an Afghan peace deal, says US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Pompeo made the remarks in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, where he met Uzbek leaders who had helped to seek peace in the war-torn country, according to New York Times.

He highlighted the difficulty that American officials had faced in striving to reach a reduction in the Afghanistan conflict that would allow President Donald Trump to withdraw some or most of the roughly 13,000 troops there.

Pompeo said work on the plan amounted to “putting the commas in the right place, getting the sentences right,” though he did not go into details.

“We got close once before to having an agreement, a piece of paper that we mutually executed, and the Taliban weren’t able to demonstrate either their will to deliver on a reduction in violence,” he said.

“And so what we are demanding now is demonstrable evidence of their will and capacity to reduce violence, to take down the threat,” Pompeo added.

US special envoy for Afghan peace Zalmay Khalilzad visited Kabul on Saturday for talks with Afghan leaders. He told President Ashraf Ghani there had been no significant progress in talks with Taliban.

The secretary thanked President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan for forging a closer, strategic partnership with Washington in trying to advance the Afghanistan peace talks.

sa/mud

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