State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on Tuesday praised President Trump’s push for the Taliban peace deal, which is aimed at ending the 18-year war in Afghanistan that began after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“We never thought we would see the Taliban agree to break with al Qaeda. No one’s ever been able to get with them to do that before,” Ortagus told “America’s Newsroom.”
“We never thought we would see them agree to go to interact in dialogue to meet with women, to meet with the government, to meet with civil society, so President Trump through his leadership is ending America’s longest war in the most responsible way possible.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined “Special Report with Bret Baier” Monday to discuss the peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying the Trump administration has been able to do what the Obama administration could not.
“What we’ve done is fundamentally different than what the Obama administration did. Indeed, we accomplished what they tried to do, but could not,” Pompeo said. “They never got the Taliban to break with Al Qaeda and they never got a commitment that says, ‘If you execute the following conditions based — That is, if the violence levels come down. That is, if the security posture for the United States of America is reduced, then and only then will we begin to deliver a commensurate footprint inside of your country.'”
Ortagus said that the deal is in the interest of safety for Americans and Afghans.
“That often gets left out of the equation, that they have been at war for four decades. These people deserve peace; these people deserve a chance at the political resolution,” she said.
She also said that there are still troops there due to the Trump administration’s “condition-based approach” that a military presence is necessary while America is under “terrorist threat.”
*Story by Fox News