Taliban Sets Condition for Participating Afghan Conf.

Mohammad Naeem, a spokesman for the Taliban political office, said in a tweet Tuesday that “until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland,” the group would “not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan.”

The tweet comes as Turkey has scheduled a meeting about Afghanistan on April 24.

A senior US administration official told reporters Washington “will begin an orderly drawdown of the remaining forces before May 1 and plan to have all US troops out of the country before the 20th anniversary of 9/11,” The Hill reported Tuesday. The plan is expected to be formally announced Wednesday, pushing back a May withdrawal deadline set in a deal with the Taliban.

For long, the US has allegedly been trying to come to terms with Taliban and withdraw forces from the country.

“We are not staying a long time,” President Joe Biden said last month. “We will leave, the question is when we leave.”

Under a February 2020 “peace” deal between the Taliban and the Trump administration, Washington vowed to withdraw all 2,500 US troops remaining in Afghanistan. In return, the Taliban pledged to stop attacks on US troops.

The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 under the pretext of the so-called war against terror.