By Our Political Correspondent
Today is going to mark the beginning of the end of America’s longest war in the history. United States and Taliban are poised to sign a historic peace deal to pave the way for durable peace in Afghanistan, which has been under the grip of violence for almost four decades. The peace deal is going to be signed in Doha, the Qatari capital.
US and Taliban after a week long “reduction in violence” are now set to sign the historic deal in the presence of international community to ensure peace in the impoverished country. “If the Taliban and Afghan government live up to their commitments, we will have a powerful path to end violence in Afghanistan and bring our troops home”, US President Donald Trump said in a statement on Friday.
The deal would be inked in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which as been a base off and on for US and Taliban regarding table talks.
Under the deal, the presence of US troops would be reduced to 8600 from current 12000 to 13000 over the course of 135 days. This deal is going to be followed by an antra-Afghan dialogue between Taliban, Afghan government and other key stakeholders.
“This would be for the first time in the history that all Afghan sides would be present to discuss ways and means to find political solution of issues relating to Afghanistan”, US Secretary of State Pompeo was quoted by CNN as saying about the deal.
The violence in the war-torn country continued and two US troops were killed by Taliban this year. US invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of deadliest attack on September 11, 2001 at Pentagon and World Trade Center. Since the country has spend billions of dollars.
US under Barrack Obama made troops surge and there were 120000 US troops from 2010 to 2012 with a yearly cost of 100 bs dollars. However from 2016 to 2018, the US annual expenditure in Afghanistan was 40 b $ and in 2019 the country’s cost of war was estimated 38 b $.
During this longest war 2300 US soldiers killed and 20660 soldiers were injured. However, no authentic data of civilian casualties could be found.
