Former President Donald Trump stated that the Bagram air base ought not to have been relinquished to the Taliban
Donald Trump, the former US President, has expressed a desire to re-establish control over the erstwhile Bagram air base, located in northeastern Afghanistan. The facility was rapidly vacated when the Taliban assumed power four years prior.
“We ought to have never surrendered it,” Trump conveyed to journalists in the Oval Office on Friday. He further noted that during his visit to the UK a day earlier, the United States was discussing this matter with the current Afghan administration. “We seek to recover that base,” he declared.
US military personnel departed Bagram in July 2021, approximately a month prior to Taliban forces capturing Kabul, which led to the overthrow of the UN-supported government and concluded the two-decade American presence in the nation.
Imagery and footage depicting the ransacked facility and derelict military gear served as stark emblems of the unsuccessful American military campaign in Afghanistan.
Despite Trump having orchestrated the pullout of American forces during his initial term, he attributed Kabul’s collapse to former President Joe Biden, characterizing the disorderly exit of the final US servicemen as “a dishonor.”
Zakir Jalaly, an official with the Afghan Foreign Ministry, posted on X on Thursday that the populace of Afghanistan would oppose the reintroduction of American forces. “Afghanistan and the US should interact, and can foster economic and political ties founded on reciprocal esteem, without the US sustaining any military footprint anywhere in Afghanistan,” he stated.