Pompeo: Taliban must behave

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday said Afghanistan’s Taliban must learn to behave.

Pompeo said President Donald Trump broke off peace talks with the Taliban because they are “not going to reward” their behavior after the Taliban killed an American last week. “An agreement is just a piece of paper. We have to actually see that change in behavior,” Pompeo told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.”

“When we saw this action when we were closing in on a solution and closing in on opportunity for the president to actually meet with the decision makers that can actually deliver that reconciliation peace to the Afghan people, President Trump said ‘that's enough,’” Pompeo continued. “‘We're not going to do that, we’re not going to reward that behavior,’ and broke it off.”

Trump on Saturday took to Twitter to announce that he had canceled secret meetings with Taliban leaders and the Afghan president set to take place this weekend at Camp David.

Pompeo said “enormous progress” had been made over the last months working with the Afghan government.

"We had a commitment from the Taliban that said they would break from Al Qaeda publicly and permanently," Pompeo added. "We had a commitment from them that said they would reduce violence."

“We had a commitment that they would meet in Oslo to begin reconciliation conversation, and then the Taliban overreached,” Pompeo said. “They killed an American in an effort to gain leverage at the negotiating table, and President Trump said enough.”

Pompeo acknowledged that in the past, peace talks resumed in the face of other attacks. But, he also added that American forces are “putting real pressure on the Taliban.”

“In just the last 10 days alone we've killed over 1,000 Taliban,” he said.

Pompeo said America’s negotiator will be returning to the United States for now.

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine