Pompeo: Taliban 'overreached' in attack that killed American

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that Taliban "overreached" with a car bomb attack in Kabul that killed an American soldier, leading President Donald Trump to call off closely-held Afghanistan peace talks planned for Camp David.

Pompeo said the Trump administration has recalled envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been negotiating with Taliban leaders for months in Qatar, and it will be up to the insurgent group whether talks will resume.

Critics denounced Trump's plan to hold the Camp David meeting just days before the 18th anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks, and they said Trump was giving legitimacy to extremists who are responsible for the deaths of more than 2,400 US service members in America's longest war.

Pompeo said Trump wanted to look the Taliban leaders "in the eye" while Khalilzad worked to finalize an agreement that would allow the US to start withdrawing troops. Pompeo defended Trump's planned talks, saying the presidential retreat in Maryland was an "appropriate place", given that it had been the venue for Mideast peace negotiations and other diplomatic meetings.

Trump tweeted Saturday night that he canceled negotiations with the Taliban in the wake of Thursday's car bombing that killed an American soldier, a Romanian service member and 10 civilians in a busy diplomatic area near the US Embassy in the Afghan capital. The bombing was one of many attacks by the Taliban in recent days. Sgt. 1st Class Elis A. Barreto Ortiz, 34, was the fourth US service member killed in the past two weeks in Afghanistan.

"They tried to use terror to improve their negotiating position," said Pompeo, who appeared on five Sunday TV talk shows. "The Taliban overreached."

Pompeo said the agreement in principle that had been negotiated with the Taliban included their commitment to break with al-Qaida. The Taliban harbored al-Qaida before that group conducted the 9/11 attacks against the United States.

"And then the Taliban failed to live up to a series of commitments that they had made, and when that happened President Trump said, 'I'm not going to take that deal. I'm not going to work with someone that can't deliver on their commitments,'" Pompeo said.

The Afghan government says it doesn't believe talks between the United States and Taliban will continue "at this stage." Taliban said Americans would be the ones who suffer from Trump's cancellation of the talks.

Afghan presidential spokesman Sediq Sediqqi confirmed that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani had wanted to go to Washington to speak with Trump about his concerns "but I am not able to go into the details of the particular trip." The details of the US-Taliban deal that had been shown to Ghani last week "were not convincing," Sediqqi said. "Let's see the future."

The Taliban said canceling the talks damages "the credibility" of the US, but that they think the US will return to the negotiations.

AP