The Trump administration is preparing to withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan in exchange for concessions from the Taliban, including a cease-fire and a renunciation of al-Qaeda, as part of an initial deal to end the nearly 18-year-old war, U.S. officials say.

The agreement, which would require the Taliban to begin negotiating a larger peace deal directly with the Afghan government, could cut the number of American troops in the country from roughly 14,000 to between 8,000 and 9,000, the officials said. That number would be nearly the same as when President Trump took office.

The plan has taken shape after months of negotiations between the Taliban and Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-born American diplomat who was appointed by the Trump administration last year to jump-start talks. Officials said an agreement could be finalized ahead of the Afghan presidential election in September, though they cautioned that Taliban leaders could delay and that significant challenges remain.

The proposal is likely to be viewed skeptically by some U.S. and Afghan officials who question the Taliban’s honesty and wonder how the United States can verify whether Taliban leaders are following through. But if approved, it would be one of the most significant steps toward ending the war, a goal that increasingly has bipartisan support.

“I would say that they are 80 or 90 percent of the way there,” said one official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of the emerging deal. “But there is still a long way to go on that last 10 or 20 percent.”

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, declined to comment about the likelihood of an initial agreement. In a brief telephone interview Thursday, he said he did not know when talks would resume.

“We are hopeful,” he said. “Things look promising that there will be a breakthrough. We hope there won’t be any obstacle, but it also depends on the seriousness of the Americans.”

Khalilzad said in a tweet Wednesday that he plans to resume his next round of talks with the Taliban in Qatar soon and that if the group does its part, an agreement will be finalized.

Additional cuts to U.S. forces would be negotiated as part of discussions involving the Taliban and the Afghan government, U.S. officials said.

Army Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is open to the proposal, two defense officials said, because he believes it would protect U.S. interests by maintaining a counterterrorism force that can strike the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. Miller, who took command in Kabul last September, previously has said that political negotiations are “absolutely” a key to ending the war.

“Neither side will win it militarily, and if neither side will win it militarily you have to move . . . towards a political settlement here,” he said in an interview with ABC News in February.

A spokesman for Miller, Army Col. Sonny Leggett, declined to comment.

U.S. officials acknowledged there are legitimate concerns that the Taliban might not break with al-Qaeda, as Washington has demanded, or stand up to the Islamic State. Still, officials may be content with a partial troop withdrawal that opens the door to additional negotiations and keeps the counterterrorism mission alive as the status quo becomes politically untenable.

The Taliban has refused to talk with the Afghan government, which it calls a puppet regime until it reaches a deal with the United States on its troops.

A Pentagon spokesman, Cmdr. Sean Robertson said the Defense Department has not been ordered to withdraw forces from Afghanistan — a point that other officials describing the potential deal also stressed. Robertson declined to discuss what a partial troop withdrawal could include, saying the department does not comment on military planning.

“Our strategy in Afghanistan is conditions-based,” Robertson said. “Our troops will remain in Afghanistan at appropriate levels so long as their presence is required to safeguard U.S. interests.”

Afghan government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said they expected that an initial U.S. deal with the Taliban would include some U.S. troop reductions but did not know what numbers or timetable might be proposed.

The officials said they were pleased to hear that a U.S. proposal would require the Taliban to meet with them. But some expressed concerns that a partial pullout would embolden the Taliban.

“The Americans call this a peace negotiation, but the Taliban definitely perceive it as a withdrawal negotiation,” one Afghan official said.

A State Department official rejected that view, saying the United States is pursuing “peace” not “withdrawal.”

In recent weeks, U.S. visitors to Afghanistan have included Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Marine Gen. Kenneth F. ­McKenzie, the chief of U.S. Central Command; and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The task of explaining the negotiations in Afghanistan to the American public has fallen to Pompeo. On Monday, when asked whether he expected a reduction in U.S. forces before the 2020 election, he said, “That’s my directive.” The following day, he clarified his remarks, saying that “there is no deadline” for the mission there and accusing the news media of misinterpreting his words.

The president wants to draw down forces “just as quickly as we can get there, consistent with his other mission set, which is to ensure that we have an adequate risk reduction plan for making sure that there is not terror that’s ­conducted from Afghanistan,” Pompeo told reporters aboard his plane en route to Thailand.

Trump said this week that he did not know whether all troops will come home from the war before the U.S. election. “We hope in the coming days that we will be able to urge the Taliban to talk,” he said.

Cutting the troop level to 9,000 would require commanders in the field to make some tough decisions on which bases to close and which missions to curtail, and on whether to scale back advising Afghan troops.

One person with familiarity with Miller’s thinking said the general is sure to want to keep open Bagram airbase, from which the United States launches counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains. The military also is likely to maintain a significant presence in Kabul, where there are numerous bases, and some troops at Kandahar Airfield, the largest U.S. base in the south.

Meanwhile, U.S. officials say that German troops are likely to keep a presence in northern Afghanistan and that Italian troops will remain in the west.

But some Afghan officials fear that a preliminary deal outlining a U.S. withdrawal could weaken their negotiating position during intra-Afghan talks and eventually leave them alone to fight the ­battle-hardened Taliban.

One of the concerns is that gains made since the fall of the Taliban could be erased if the group, which seeks to re-establish an Islamic emirate, becomes part of a power-sharing government. Women’s rights groups are especially concerned, given the Taliban’s restrictions on women and opposition to educating girls. But the State Department says it has secured an agreement with the Afghan government on “next steps on the Afghan peace process.”

In the absence of formal talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban, the militant Islamist group has been willing to meet with a delegation of Afghan leaders in Qatar in recent weeks, with the understanding that the Afghans are not acting in an official government capacity. Though the Taliban officials were reportedly welcoming, progress was not made on preserving fundamental freedoms, according to media reports citing people who attended the meetings.

The State Department declined to comment on the details of the drawdown agreement, but an official said that “any future reductions or withdrawal of forces will be conditions-based.”

State Department officials say a breakthrough hinges on an agreement on four issues: counterterrorism assurances, troop withdrawal, intra-Afghan dialogue, and a comprehensive cease-fire. In March, Khalilzad said that he reached agreement on a draft containing the first two points but that a final deal would not conclude “until everything is agreed.”

Khalilzad spent the past 10 days in Kabul for consultations with Afghans in what he described to one reporter as his “most productive visit” there since becoming special envoy. Next, he will travel to Pakistan and then Qatar to continue talks with the Taliban, a State Department official said.

In another indication that a force-reduction deal may soon be reached, the Afghan government named a 15-member team Wednesday to negotiate directly with the Taliban. Meetings with the Taliban and the Afghan government would proceed after the U.S. and Taliban officials reach their preliminary deal.

The discussions continue even as violence across the country remains pervasive, with the Taliban controlling more territory than at any point since 2001.

On Sunday, Afghan vice-presidential candidate Amrullah Saleh was targeted in an attack in Kabul that left at least 20 people dead. He has long been an adversary of the Taliban.

On Monday, two U.S. soldiers — Spec. Michael Nance, 24, and Pfc. Brandon Kreischer, 20 — were killed in Uruzgan province in what officials have described as an “insider” attack by an Afghan soldier. Fourteen U.S. troops have died this year from injuries sustained in the conflict.

Last year was the deadliest year for civilians during the entirety of the Afghan conflict, with 3,804 civilian deaths and 7,000 wounded, according to the United Nations.

Nearly 2,400 American troops have died in the country since the war began in 2001 and more than 20,000 have been wounded, according to the Pentagon.

Constable reported from Kabul. Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul and Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-preparing-to-withdraw-thousands-of-troops-from-afghanistan-in-initial-deal-with-taliban/2019/08/01/01e97126-b3ac-11e9-8f6c-7828e68cb15f_story.html?utm_term=.08e38a33e018

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The statement came as the United States and South Korea were preparing to conduct joint military exercises on the Korean Peninsula and surrounding waters starting on Monday, despite North Korea’s vehement opposition to such drills.

In response to threats from President Trump, North Korea’s military announced last week that by mid-August, it would submit a plan to Kim Jong-un, the country’s leader, for launching four ballistic missiles into waters around Guam, the United States territory that is home to American military bases.

On Monday, Mr. Kim reviewed the plan while visiting the command of the Strategic Force of the Korean People’s Army but said he would wait a bit before telling the military to proceed with the missile launchings, the state news media reported on Tuesday.

“He said that the U.S. imperialists caught the noose around their necks due to their reckless military confrontation racket, adding that they would watch a little more the foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees,” said the report from the Korean Central News Agency.

Mr. Kim’s decision to wait “a little more” before ordering the launchings represented a slight ratcheting down of tensions and came after some of Mr. Trump’s top aides on Monday tried to tamp down fears of a clash after his threat to rain “fire and fury” on North Korea.

South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, on Tuesday offered an unusually blunt rebuke to the Trump administration’s discussions of possible military responses to the North, saying no country should take military action on the Korean Peninsula without his government’s approval.

“It’s only South Korea that can decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula,” Mr. Moon said during a nationally televised speech marking National Liberation Day, which celebrates the end of Japanese colonial rule of Korea at the end of World War II. “No one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement.”

South Koreans have grown increasingly concerned in recent days about a possible military conflict following Mr. Trump’s threats against the North.

As the exchange of combative rhetoric intensified between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim, Mr. Moon and his office have issued a steady stream of statements opposing any armed conflict on the peninsula.

Although Mr. Moon’s latest statement did not mention Mr. Trump by name, it marked his strongest expression of disapproval of military options being considered by Washington.

In a meeting with Mr. Moon on Monday, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed with the South Korean leader that the standoff over North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats should be resolved through diplomacy and sanctions. But the top American general added that the United States was preparing military options in case those efforts failed.

“The United States military’s priority is to support our government’s efforts to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through diplomatic and economic pressure,” General Dunford was quoted as saying in a Korean-language statement released by Mr. Moon’s office after the meeting on Monday. “We are preparing a military option in case such efforts fail.”

On Tuesday, General Dunford met in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Fang Fenghui, discussing North Korea, as well as Taiwan and the South China Sea. It was not clear what message General Dunford delivered, or whether the generals discussed China’s proposal that North Korea freeze its nuclear testing in exchange for the United States cutting sharply back on its military exercises with South Korea.

The Pentagon and the State Department have said in the last several days that the Trump administration favors diplomacy to resolve the North’s nuclear expansion, but they have rejected China’s proposal, which it first presented earlier this year.

In a statement after the meeting, General Fang struck a conciliatory tone on the relationship between the United States and China, but made no mention of North Korea. “Cooperation is the only right choice between China and the U.S.,” he said.

In his speech on Tuesday, Mr. Moon said that his government would “do everything it can to prevent war.” At the same time, he called for dialogue with North Korea, repeating his long-held belief that sanctions alone cannot solve the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.

“The purpose of strong sanctions and pressure against North Korea is to bring it to the negotiating table, not to raise military tensions,” he said.

The South Korean leader urged North Korea to help create momentum toward dialogue by not conducting any more nuclear or missile tests.

He also reiterated his proposal to the North that the two Koreas organize reunions of families separated during the 1950-53 Korean War as a first step toward easing tensions and improving ties on the divided Korean Peninsula.

China and Russia also kept up pressure on North Korea and the United States to tone down the language of their exchanges. The Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, told his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, in a phone call on Tuesday that their governments should “not permit anyone to provoke incidents at the doorsteps of China and Russia,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“The urgent task is to slam the breaks on the mutually provocative words and actions between North Korea and the United States,” Mr. Wang said. “Cool the tensions and prevent an ‘August crisis’ from breaking out.”

Mr. Trump held a 30-minute call on Tuesday with Shinzo Abe, Japan’s prime minister, about the tensions in the region.

In comments to reporters Tuesday morning Japan time, Mr. Abe said that the two leaders “frankly exchanged opinions on the current North Korean situation,” saying he appreciated Mr. Trump’s “commitment to the safety of its allies.”

Mr. Abe, who has emerged as one of Mr. Trump’s most loyal allies, said that he and Mr. Trump “shared the view that the priority is not to let North Korea launch missiles.”

Motoko Rich contributed reporting from Tokyo, and Jane Perlez and Chris Buckley from Beijing. Adam Wu contributed research from Beijing.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/world/asia/south-korea-trump-north-korea.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia%20Pacific&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article

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The developments suggested that officials of the United States, South Korea and China are seeking to emphasize a message in Asia of lowering tensions after President Trump’s apocalyptic threats last week over North Korea’s missile and nuclear testing.

In a meeting with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, whose country has been alarmed by Mr. Trump’s threats, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said military options were a last resort.

“The United States military’s priority is to support our government’s efforts to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through diplomatic and economic pressure,” General Dunford was quoted as saying in a Korean-language statement released by Mr. Moon’s office after the meeting. “We are preparing a military option in case such efforts fail.”

General Dunford’s remarks were echoed by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, who co-wrote an opinion column posted online Sunday by The Wall Street Journal asserting that the United States and its allies wanted a peaceful resolution.

Without mentioning Mr. Trump’s “fire and fury” and “lock and load” threats to North Korea, they wrote that the administration was applying “diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a dismantling of the regime’s ballistic-missile programs.”

Before the meeting with General Dunford, Mr. Moon issued one of his strongest statements yet against armed conflict. “Our national interest is peace, and there should never be war on the Korean Peninsula again,” Mr. Moon was quoted as saying in a meeting with his senior staff. “No matter what it takes, the North Korean nuclear problem must be resolved peacefully.”

In China, North Korea’s main trading partner, officials announced that they would begin enforcing tough new United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang on Tuesday.

General Dunford’s visit to South Korea was the first of three stops in his trip to the region, which has been roiled by the exchange of fiery threats between Mr. Trump and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.

The general has said that the trip is meant to offer transparency to America’s allies in the region and to prevent any miscalculation on China’s part about the Pentagon’s intentions. He arrived in China on Monday night, and will travel to Japan later in the week.

South Koreans, many living within range of North Korean artillery, were particularly alarmed by Mr. Trump’s threat to bring down “fire and fury” on the North if Pyongyang continued to threaten the United States with nuclear missiles.

On his way to Seoul, General Dunford said his trip was in support of Mr. Tillerson’s diplomatic and economic campaign to deter North Korea. Even as Mr. Trump has issued one provocative statement after another against the North, Mr. Tillerson has been reminding Pyongyang that the door to dialogue is open if the nation halts missile and nuclear tests.

“As a military leader, I have to make sure that the president does have viable military options in the event that the diplomatic and economic pressurization campaign fails,” General Dunford told reporters on his plane. “But even as we develop those options, we are mindful of the consequences of those options, and that gives us a greater sense of urgency to make sure we are doing everything we absolutely can to support Secretary Tillerson’s path.”

The general’s calibrated statement appeared to be an attempt to calm allies in South Korea while backing up Mr. Trump’s warnings to the North.

Concern escalated in the Trump administration about the North’s nuclear threat after the country flight-tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles last month, the second of which appeared to have the capacity to reach the American mainland. It is not clear that the North can accurately target such a missile or build a nuclear warhead that can survive re-entry into the atmosphere.

This month, Washington persuaded China and Russia to agree to the toughest United Nations Security Council sanctions to date against North Korea, which could deprive it of as much as a third of its external export revenues.

On Monday, China’s Ministry of Commerce and customs administration announced that the country would begin enforcing the sanctions on Tuesday, by fully banning imports of aquatic products, coal, iron, iron ore, lead and lead ore from North Korea. The seafood products it listed as banned include fish, crustaceans and sturgeon caviar. Seafood, along with coal, has been a sizable Chinese import from North Korea.

China imported $91 million worth of seafood from North Korea in the first half of 2017, according to Chinese customs figures cited by Reuters.

China’s announcement came hours before General Dunford was scheduled to arrive in Beijing. He was scheduled to meet with Gen. Fang Fenghui, his Chinese counterpart, during his two-day visit, Pentagon officials said.

The visit to China was planned well before the recent North Korea developments, as part of a choreographed series of visits of top American and Chinese generals to each other’s countries. General Fang visited Washington in 2014.

In Beijing, General Dunford is expected to emphasize that Washington plans to complete the deployment of a missile defense system known as Thaad in South Korea. China has vehemently opposed the deployment, calling it a threat to Chinese security.

Speaking to South Korea’s National Assembly on Monday, Defense Minister Song Young-moo said his military hoped to complete the Thaad deployment by the end of the year.

North Korea showed no sign of dialing down its rhetoric on Monday. In a statement denouncing annual joint exercises between the United States and South Korean militaries, which are scheduled to begin on Aug. 21, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency warned that a second Korean War would be a “nuclear war.”

“Even if no one wanted it, they would not be able to prevent a mere accidental spark from triggering a war,” the statement said.

North Korea strongly objects to the joint military exercises, calling them a rehearsal for an invasion, and has often responded to them with weapons tests. China has proposed that the joint exercises be suspended in exchange for a suspension of the North’s nuclear and missile tests, but Washington has rejected the idea.

Lee Jin-woo, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, said on Monday that the joint exercises would go ahead as planned, denying a domestic news media report that they would be scaled down this year.

The North Korean military has said it will complete a plan to launch four ballistic missiles in waters around Guam, home to a major American Air Force base in the Western Pacific, by the middle of this month, and will then wait for Mr. Kim’s order to proceed. It has also claimed that 3.5 million young North Koreans have recently volunteered to join the military to fight the Americans.

In China, the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, the ruling Communist Party’s main newspaper, said on Monday that the world had become used to belligerent statements from North Korea, but had been alarmed to hear similarly aggressive talk from the United States.

An editorial in the paper warned that the joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea would only make the situation worse. The overseas edition of the People’s Daily is a lower-circulation offshoot of the main domestic edition, and its editorials broadly reflect official thinking.

“It’s to be feared that this will became a new goad for North Korea, and trigger another round of tit-for-tat confrontation,” the editorial said, referring to the joint exercises. “It is not advisable to play chicken on the Korean Peninsula. All sides should be careful in their words and actions.”

Chris Buckley and Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Beijing.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-us-joseph-dunford.html

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