The United States will hold the Taliban and the Afghan government accountable to their commitments not to allow terrorists to threaten the United States or its allies from Afghan soil, US President Joe Biden has said.
In a letter to Congressional committee on Afghanistan released by the White House on Tuesday, Biden defended his decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.
“We have long since accomplished the objectives that sent us to Afghanistan. It has been 10 years since we delivered justice to Osama bin Laden. The terrorist threat from al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan is significantly degraded,” Biden said.
“Keeping thousands of troops concentrated on the ground in Afghanistan no longer makes sense as the most effective counterterrorism strategy when the threat has metastasized across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia,” he said.
Biden, however, said that US will not take its eye off the terrorist threat in Afghanistan. “The United States will reorganize our counterterrorism capabilities and assets in the region to prevent the reemergence of a terrorist threat in Afghanistan.”
Biden said that the US will continue to support Afghan security forces, women’s rights and peace talks.
“We will encourage other nations in the region, especially Pakistan, to do more to support Afghanistan and to support stability in the country,” Biden said. “But we will not allow United States troops to be a bargaining chip between warring parties in other countries. That is a recipe for staying indefinitely in Afghanistan.”
