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Under Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. peace envoy, the American authorities has been prepared to take dramatic steps, even within the face of opposition from the navy and legislation enforcement, to extricate the United States from its longest struggle and produce about some sort of peace in Afghanistan.
In addition to the large-scale prisoner releases, the Trump administration has pushed for a fast withdrawal of navy forces within the nation, usually over the objections of the Pentagon. The U.S. navy has drawn right down to 2,500 troops, nonetheless stationed at roughly a dozen bases within the nation, regardless of opposition from U.S. lawmakers.
But as President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. prepares to take workplace, a key query stays — whether or not he’ll preserve Mr. Khalilzad in place, or, push for a veteran diplomat of his personal selecting. Mr. Biden has lengthy had a skeptical view of a large American presence in Afghanistan, however not like President Trump, he has additionally argued for a counterterrorism pressure within the nation.
The F.B.I., based on U.S. officers, positioned Ms. Hasan on an inventory of people that shouldn’t be launched as a part of the Feb. 29 deal between the United States and the Taliban, wherein the U.S. agreed to push the Afghan authorities to free 5,000 prisoners. Officials in Australia and France additionally pushed, to no avail, for a small variety of the 5,000 prisoners, those that have been convicted of killing their residents, to stay locked up.
But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who oversaw the negotiations and guided them based mostly on his interpretation of what Mr. Trump needed, instructed overseas governments that “there was no alternative but to move forward with the prisoner releases as the parties had agreed,” based on an official who labored on the February settlement.
Internally, the State Department ultimately overruled the request to maintain Ms. Hasan behind bars, as properly. The determination was a part of a broader effort by the White House to expedite talks between the Afghan authorities and the Taliban earlier than the November presidential election within the United States, the officers mentioned.
In an announcement to The Times, a State Department spokesperson mentioned the prisoner swap was “a difficult decision for the Afghans to make” and for the United States to simply accept, including that it was “not something we are happy about.”
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