Taliban Ready to Resume Peace Talks Following Trump's Visit to Kabul

The Taliban said today they are ready to resume peace talks with theUS - a day after President Donald Trump's surprise visit to US troops in Afghanistan, Reuters reported.

Trump has announced that peace talks with hardline Islamist insurgents in Afghanistan will resume.

“The Taliban wants to make a deal and we’re meeting with them and we’re saying it has to be a cease-fire and they didn’t want to do a cease-fire and now they do want to do a cease-fire,” Trump said during a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at Bagram Air Field.

“I believe it probably will work out that way, and we'll see what happens,” he added.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said today that they are "ready to resume talks" that have failed since Trump terminated them earlier this year.

"Our stance is still the same. If peace talks start, it will be resumed from the stage where it had stopped," Mujahid told Reuters.

"We are hoping that Trump’s visit to Afghanistan will prove that he is serious to start talks again. We don’t think he has not much of a choice," said a senior Taliban commander on conditions of anonymity, Reuters reported.

Earlier, representatives of the Taliban leadership told Reuters that since the end of last week, the group has been negotiating in Doha with senior US officials and that the peace talks could soon be resumed officially.

Trump's surprise visit to Afghanistan was his first since becoming president, and took place a week after the exchange of captives between Washington and the Taliban, which raised hopes that an agreement could be reached to end the war, Reuters notes.