When asked if President Biden will talk with Taliban officials, Sullivan answered, “that is not in consideration right now.”
As per National Security Advisor , the US is in daily negotiations with the Taliban through political and security channels and advising friends and partners on the ongoing evacuation from Kabul airport.
“On a daily basis, we hold talks with the Taliban through both political and security channels.
To safeguard those talks, which include a wide variety of subjects, I’m not going to get into the details of those discussions here “At a White House press briefing, Sullivan told reporters.
However, he stressed that the United States does not trust the Taliban.
The dialogue with the Taliban, according to Sullivan, includes every part of what’s going on in Kabul right now, as well as what’s going on at the airport, and how they need to assure that American people, third-country nationals, and others have easy access to the airport. “Those interactions with them will continue,” he said.
When asked if President Biden will meet with Taliban commanders, Sullivan replied, “that is not in consideration at this moment.”
He also stated that the United States is consulting closely with its allies and partners on the evacuation and its progress.
“We’re taking things one day at a time. We think we’re making a lot of progress “he stated
Separately, State Department Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters at the State Department that Zalmay Khalilzad, the Special US Representative for Afghan Reconciliation, and his staff are in daily touch with the Taliban and its leadership, who have now travelled to Afghanistan.
“For our part, we’ve been in contact with relevant and important stakeholders, including those involved in intra-Afghan talks with the Taliban. We are unable to read those calls out loud.
This has mostly been on the part of our team in Doha, as well as our team on the ground in Afghanistan, to ensure that we have a consistent line of communication with those Afghan stakeholders “Price stated his opinion.
He also stated that the US is in contact with representatives of the Islamic Republic and other stakeholders involved in the current debate.
“We’re doing everything we can right now to promote a calm and orderly transition to a government that has broad support.
This is what we’ve been concentrating on in terms of how we interact with the parties, how we communicate with them, and how we present information to them “he stated
“But, more importantly, this has been the message that representatives of the Islamic Republic, as well as Taliban officials, have received from the international community, whether it was from NATO, the G7, or the 113 countries that gathered at our organisation about a week ago today to press for this very outcome,” Price said.
Sullivan underlined that the US does not trust the Taliban in response to a question.
“The President has made his feelings regarding the Taliban extremely clear. ‘Do you trust these guys?’ you’ve asked him several times.
And he’s consistently told you, ‘No, I don’t.’ He doesn’t, of course.”
“Of course, none of us do,” he said, “because we’ve seen the horrific images from the last time they were in power because we’ve seen the way they’ve conducted this war because we’ve seen the fact that they’ve been responsible for the deaths of American men and women over the course of two decades of war that the President was not willing to continue for the third decade.”
As a result, we don’t have any illusions about the Taliban,” he remarked.
“What we need to do right now, from our standpoint, is focus on our work at hand, which is to transport tens of thousands of people out of the country as safely and expeditiously as possible.” That’s what we’re doing and what we think we can accomplish,” he said.
