MUNICH - An Afghan source close to the negotiations has said that US officials in Munich, Germany, reassured President Ashraf Ghani and his team that America won't abandon them, according to a CNN report.
"We guarantee you if they [Taliban] break [terms of deal] US will have enough lethal power to destroy them, we are with the Afghans now and we will be with Afghanistan forever,” the source said that Americans told the Afghans, according to the CNN report.
The report also said that the source made the comments as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the US and NATO were prepared to reduce their military presence in Afghanistan if the Taliban demonstrated a willingness to reduce violence and come to the negotiating table.
"We are not leaving Afghanistan ... NATO has said, the US has said, we are prepared to adjust our presence if the Taliban demonstrates real will and capability to reduce violence," Stoltenberg said during his address at the Munich Security Conference.
"The aim of our presence in Afghanistan is to send the message to the Taliban that they will never win on the battlefield, but they have to sit down and make real compromises around the negotiating table," he added.
On Saturday, Ghani at the Munich Security Conference highlighted a number of important topics pertaining to the region, particularly the recent developments in the talks between the US and the Taliban, asking the Taliban to try the voting process themselves at least once.
Ghani said that drugs are playing a key role in financing terrorism and that the international community must take responsibility in combating drug production in Afghanistan.
He said that the war in Afghanistan today is not a civil war.
“The war in Afghanistan is not a civil war, but a multi-dimensional conflict,” he said.
The Afghan president said that the concern that the Taliban could be using a peace process as a “Trojan horse strategy” is there, but you can’t end this war without engaging in a process and testing them. (TOLO NEWS)