Coronavirus-stricken British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fever started easing as he remained in intensive care Wednesday — as Queen Elizabeth II sent a message of support to his pregnant fiancée, according to reports.
Johnson, 55, showed promising signs as he spent his second night in an intensive care unit, where he still did not need a ventilator, the Times of London reported.
“He’s comfortable and in good spirits,” health minister Edward Argar told ITV’s “Good Morning Britain,” according to the Times.
The New York-born leader is being cared for in London’s St Thomas’ Hospital by a team led by the UK’s leading lung doctor, Dr. Richard Leach, according to the Daily Telegraph.
“Richard is a brilliant doctor who knows everything there is to know about respiratory care. He’s saved thousands of lives,” a former colleague told the UK paper.
“The prime minister couldn’t be in better hands.”
As he remained in the ICU, the Queen revealed she sent a personal message to the PM’s fiancée, Carrie Symonds, who has been isolating at home while also stricken with symptoms of the virus.
“Her Majesty said they were in her thoughts and that she wished the Prime Minister a full and speedy recovery,” stated the official royal family Twitter account.
Not everyone was so supportive, however — with a town mayor sparking outrage by writing on Facebook that Johnson “completely deserves this” because he is “one of the worst PMs we’ve ever had.”
British Prime Minister Boris JohnsonSimon Dawson/Reuters
Sheila Oakes, the mayor of Heanor in Derbyshire, later apologized, telling the BBC she “made a mistake.”
“I didn’t think what I said would upset so many people. It came across as not a nice thing to say,” she said of the huge backlash.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers failed to agree in all-night talks on more support for their coronavirus-hit economies and their chairman said on Wednesday morning he was suspending the discussions until Thursday.
FILE PHOTO: Eurogroup President Mario Centeno arrives at the European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium, June 21, 2019. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw/File Photo
Diplomatic sources and officials said a feud between Italy and the Netherlands over what conditions should be attached to euro zone credit for governments fighting the pandemic was blocking progress on half a trillion euros worth of aid.
“After 16 hours of discussions we came close to a deal but we are not there yet,” Eurogroup chairman Mario Centeno said. “I suspended the Eurogroup and (we will)continue tomorrow.”
The finance ministers, who started talks at 1430 GMT on Tuesday that lasted all night with numerous breaks to allow for bilateral negotiations, are trying to agree a package of measures to help governments, companies and individuals.
They had hoped to agree on a half-trillion-euro programme to cushion the economic slump and finance recovery from the pandemic, and turn a page on divisions that have marred relations as the bloc struggles with the outbreak.
But feuds emerged prominently again, one diplomatic source said: “The Italians want a reference to debt mutualisation as a possible recovery instrument to be analysed more in the future. The Dutch say ‘no’.”
An official who participated in the talks said at around 0400 GMT on Wednesday The Hague was the only one refusing to endorse a text that the ministers were expected to agree on to get endorsement for a new set of economic measures from the bloc’s 27 national leaders.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said on Twitter:
“In this difficult hour Europe must stand together closely. Together with (French finance minister) Bruno Le Maire, I therefore call on all euro countries not to refuse to resolve these difficult financial issues and to facilitate a good compromise - for all citizens.”
Issuing joint debt has been a battle line between economically ailing southern countries like Spain and Italy and the fiscally frugal north, led by Germany and the Netherlands, since the financial and euro zone crises began over a decade ago.
“SHAME ON EUROPE”
To support economies burdened by coronavirus lockdowns, the EU has already suspended state aid limits and allowed member states to inflate their debt to spend more.
But Spain, France and Italy say that is not enough and have cast the discussion about more support as an existential test of solidarity that could make or break the EU.
Further proposals under discussions include credit lines from the euro zone bailout fund that would be worth up to 2% of a country’s economic output, or 240 billion euros in total. The conditions for gaining access to this money remain a sticking point.
Granting the European Investment Bank 25 billion euros of extra guarantees so it can step up lending to companies by a further 200 billion euros is another option.
The third is support for the EU executive’s plan to raise 100 billion euros on the market against 25 billion euros of guarantees from all governments in the bloc to subsidise wages so that firms can cut working hours rather than sack people.
Creating an emergency support fund issuing grants for medical supplies and health care is another idea, as is a French proposal to create a joint EU solidarity fund to finance long-term recovery.
If they do eventually agree, the combined pan-EU and national government responses could add up to the biggest fiscal support programme in the world, surpassing that of the United States, Reuters calculations showed.
While the EU is no stranger to protracted horse-trading, the discussion exposes rifts in the bloc and further strains its unity, already damaged by the euro zone crisis and the 2015-16 migration crisis, which partly contributed to Brexit.
So far the ministers, discussing via videoconference through the night with some of them dozing off at times, according to officials present, have been left frustrated.
Le Maire was quoted as saying at one point during the night, according to one official who participated: “Shame on you, shame on Europe. Stop this clownesque show.”
(This story has been corrected to delete extraneous word in paragraph 7.)
Additional reporting by Michelle Martin, Writing by Gabriela Baczynska, Editing by Catherine Evans and Giles Elgood
A member of the Afghan police mans a position at the Thrikh outpost in the district of Nawa in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
KABUL — The Taliban halted prisoner swap negotiations with the Afghan government Tuesday after accusing leaders in Kabul of refusing to comply with a key part of the U.S. peace deal — a major setback to what many hoped would be the start of formal talks between the two Afghan sides.
Representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government were negotiating the release of more than 100 prisoners. The U.S.-Taliban peace deal called for thousands of prisoners to be released within days of its signing, but the Afghan government quickly objected to that timeline, citing logistical constraints.
The release was already weeks behind schedule, and when the two sides finally met in Kabul, negotiators quickly hit a snag. Taliban representatives wanted their senior leaders included in the first round of releases, while the Afghan government balked at releasing anyone who had helped orchestrate large-scale attacks.
The repeated delays to the start of formal talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are threatening to upend the fragile U.S.-Taliban peace deal. Since it was signed in late February, violence in Afghanistan has escalated and a power struggle over the Afghan presidency has deepened.
Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post
Taliban fighters drive on a road in Khogiani district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, in December.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday dismissed the impasse over the prisoner releases as “posturing” and said the United States expected issues to arise as the two sides move toward formal talks.
“There was no doubt that there would be steps forward and steps backward,” Pompeo said in a news conference, adding that some progress had been made since the agreement was signed last month. “But we see them posturing in the media.”
Pompeo traveled to Kabul on March 23 to broker a deal between President Ashraf Ghani and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Ghani was declared the winner of the September election by a slim margin; Abdullah decried the result as fraudulent and has threatened to set up a parallel government. After Pompeo’s visit failed to resolve the crisis, he threatened to cut $1 billion in U.S. aid to the country.
Statements from Pompeo’s senior diplomats suggest the Trump administration has increased pressure on Afghan leaders in recent days.
“Donors are frustrated and fed up by personal agendas being advanced ahead of the welfare of the Afghan people,” Alice Wells, the State Department’s top official for South and Central Asia, said in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday.
Afghanistan needs billions in foreign aid every year to provide its citizens with basic services, and expert projections estimate the country will remain dependent on aid for years to come. That dependence is expected to be exacerbated if the coronavirus outbreak in Afghanistan worsens. Afghanistan has had more than 400 confirmed coronavirus cases and 14 deaths, but officials warn that the true number could be much higher, as testing has been limited.
Hopes were high when a Taliban delegation arrived in Kabul last week. The visit came after Ghani announced the creation of a negotiating team and Abdullah issued a statement expressing his support for its members. The Afghan government and the Taliban had also agreed on a compromise: The prisoner releases would occur in smaller batches rather than all at once.
The peace deal signed by the United States and the Taliban called for up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners to be released in exchange for 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces and government employees in Taliban custody.
But after days of talks, the Taliban issued a statement Tuesday announcing that the group would no longer participate in “fruitless meetings” and accused the Afghan government of “just wasting time.” Hours later, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen announced in a tweet that the Taliban delegation would return to Doha, Qatar, where the group has a political office.
The Afghan government said the Taliban’s move “indicates a lack of seriousness about peace,” according to a statement from Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Afghan national security adviser’s office.
Faisal said discussions “had entered an important phase” before Taliban officials backed out. Regardless, he added that the Afghan government remains open to continuing talks.
But as peace talks with the Taliban are repeatedly delayed, violence in Afghanistan has spiked. On Sunday, the Taliban accused the United States of violating the terms of the peace deal by carrying out attacks on Taliban fighters and drone strikes on Afghan civilians.
The Taliban statement warned that continued violations would “create an atmosphere of mistrust that will not only damage the agreements, but also force mujahideen to a similar response and will increase the level of fighting.”
A U.S. military spokesman, Col. Sonny Leggett, denied the Taliban allegation, saying that U.S. forces in Afghanistan are upholding the terms of the agreement and that “any assertion otherwise is baseless.”
Leggett said that the U.S. military will continue to come to the aid of Afghan forces and that the Taliban must reduce violence.
The U.S. military is continuing to draw down its forces from Afghanistan, as mandated by the peace deal with the Taliban. The United States began reducing the roughly 12,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in March and is on track to bring down the number to 8,600 by early July, within the 135-day time period stipulated by the peace deal.
George reported from London. Carol Morello in Washington and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
A member of the Afghan police mans a position at the Thrikh outpost in the district of Nawa in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
KABUL — The Taliban halted prisoner swap negotiations with the Afghan government Tuesday after accusing leaders in Kabul of refusing to comply with a key part of the U.S. peace deal — a major setback to what many hoped would be the start of formal talks between the two Afghan sides.
Representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government were negotiating the release of more than 100 prisoners. The U.S.-Taliban peace deal called for thousands of prisoners to be released within days of its signing, but the Afghan government quickly objected to that timeline, citing logistical constraints.
The release was already weeks behind schedule, and when the two sides finally met in Kabul, negotiators quickly hit a snag. Taliban representatives wanted their senior leaders included in the first round of releases, while the Afghan government balked at releasing anyone who had helped orchestrate large-scale attacks.
The repeated delays to the start of formal talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are threatening to upend the fragile U.S.-Taliban peace deal. Since it was signed in late February, violence in Afghanistan has escalated and a power struggle over the Afghan presidency has deepened.
Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post
Taliban fighters drive on a road in Khogiani district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, in December.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday dismissed the impasse over the prisoner releases as “posturing” and said the United States expected issues to arise as the two sides move toward formal talks.
“There was no doubt that there would be steps forward and steps backward,” Pompeo said in a news conference, adding that some progress had been made since the agreement was signed last month. “But we see them posturing in the media.”
Pompeo traveled to Kabul on March 23 to broker a deal between President Ashraf Ghani and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Ghani was declared the winner of the September election by a slim margin; Abdullah decried the result as fraudulent and has threatened to set up a parallel government. After Pompeo’s visit failed to resolve the crisis, he threatened to cut $1 billion in U.S. aid to the country.
Statements from Pompeo’s senior diplomats suggest the Trump administration has increased pressure on Afghan leaders in recent days.
“Donors are frustrated and fed up by personal agendas being advanced ahead of the welfare of the Afghan people,” Alice Wells, the State Department’s top official for South and Central Asia, said in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday.
Afghanistan needs billions in foreign aid every year to provide its citizens with basic services, and expert projections estimate the country will remain dependent on aid for years to come. That dependence is expected to be exacerbated if the coronavirus outbreak in Afghanistan worsens. Afghanistan has had more than 400 confirmed coronavirus cases and 14 deaths, but officials warn that the true number could be much higher, as testing has been limited.
Hopes were high when a Taliban delegation arrived in Kabul last week. The visit came after Ghani announced the creation of a negotiating team and Abdullah issued a statement expressing his support for its members. The Afghan government and the Taliban had also agreed on a compromise: The prisoner releases would occur in smaller batches rather than all at once.
The peace deal signed by the United States and the Taliban called for up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners to be released in exchange for 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces and government employees in Taliban custody.
But after days of talks, the Taliban issued a statement Tuesday announcing that the group would no longer participate in “fruitless meetings” and accused the Afghan government of “just wasting time.” Hours later, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen announced in a tweet that the Taliban delegation would return to Doha, Qatar, where the group has a political office.
The Afghan government said the Taliban’s move “indicates a lack of seriousness about peace,” according to a statement from Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Afghan national security adviser’s office.
Faisal said discussions “had entered an important phase” before Taliban officials backed out. Regardless, he added that the Afghan government remains open to continuing talks.
But as peace talks with the Taliban are repeatedly delayed, violence in Afghanistan has spiked. On Sunday, the Taliban accused the United States of violating the terms of the peace deal by carrying out attacks on Taliban fighters and drone strikes on Afghan civilians.
The Taliban statement warned that continued violations would “create an atmosphere of mistrust that will not only damage the agreements, but also force mujahideen to a similar response and will increase the level of fighting.”
A U.S. military spokesman, Col. Sonny Leggett, denied the Taliban allegation, saying that U.S. forces in Afghanistan are upholding the terms of the agreement and that “any assertion otherwise is baseless.”
Leggett said that the U.S. military will continue to come to the aid of Afghan forces and that the Taliban must reduce violence.
The U.S. military is continuing to draw down its forces from Afghanistan, as mandated by the peace deal with the Taliban. The United States began reducing the roughly 12,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in March and is on track to bring down the number to 8,600 by early July, within the 135-day time period stipulated by the peace deal.
George reported from London. Carol Morello in Washington and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
WUHAN, China (Reuters) - The Chinese city where the new coronavirus emerged ended its more-than two-month lockdown on Wednesday, even as a small northern city ordered restrictions on residents amid concern about a second wave of infections.
A member of a medical team weeps at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport after travel restrictions to leave Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and China's epicentre of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, were lifted, April 8, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song
China sealed off Wuhan, a central city of 11 million people, on Jan. 23, a drastic step that came to symbolise its aggressive management of the virus.
More than 50,000 people in Wuhan were infected, and more than 2,500 of them died, about 80% of all deaths in China, according to official figures.
The virus has since spread around the world, infecting more than 1.4 million people, killing 82,000 of them and wreaking havoc on the global economy as governments imposed lockdowns to rein in its spread.
While China has managed to curb its coronavirus epidemic the measures to contain it have exacted a heavy economic and social toll, with many residents in recent days expressing relief as well as uncertainty and worry over the lingering danger of infection.
“I’m going to see my parents,” Wang Wenshu told Reuters as she waited to check in at Wuhan’s Tianhe airport, which reopened on Wednesday.
“Of course I miss them. Stop asking me about it or I’m going to cry.”
Some travellers wore full protective suits, long raincoats or face shields.
Wuhan has slowly been returning towards normal, with people officially allowed to enter the city from March 28, although restrictions remain. Residents have been urged not to leave Wuhan or Hubei province, or even their neighbourhood, unless absolutely necessary.
“We are acutely aware that we must not relax as we have not claimed final victory,” Hubei vice governor Cao Guangjin said at a news conference on Wednesday.
“We need to remain calm, and be just as cautious at the end as at the beginning.”
Shopping malls and the city’s biggest shopping belt, the Chu River and Han street, reopened on March 30. Long queues, thanks to requirements that customers stand a metre apart, have formed at supermarkets while some residents have taken advantage of the warmer weather to resume outdoor badminton games and dancing.
Wuhan has reported just three new confirmed infections in the past 21 days and only two in the past two weeks.
NORTHERN BORDER WORRY
But even as Wuhan came back to life, new imported cases in the far northern province of Heilongjiang surged to a daily high of 25, fuelled by an influx of infected travellers crossing the border from Russia.
On Wednesday, Suifenhe city announced restrictions on the movement of citizens similar to the measures Wuhan has endured.
People must stay in their residential compounds and only one person per family can leave once every three days to buy necessities, and must return on the same day, state-run CCTV reported.
“While the whole country is celebrating the unlocking of Wuhan, few noticed that Heilongjiang is under enormous pressure dealing with infections coming over the border,” one person wrote on the Weibo social media platform.
“Suifenhe is a small city without any high-level hospitals, how can it handle the huge influx of patients?”
Some 55,000 people were expected to leave Wuhan by train on Wednesday. By early morning, more than 10,000 had left by plane, an airport official said. Flights to Beijing and international locations have not resumed.
“I’m very happy, I’m going home today,” migrant worker Liu Xiaomin told Reuters as she stood with her suitcases in Wuhan’s Hankou railway station, bound for Xiangyang city.
People from Wuhan arriving in Beijing must undergo two rounds of testing for the virus.
NEW CASES
China is maintaining strict screening protocols, concerned about any resurgence in infections by virus carriers who exhibit no symptoms and infected travellers arriving from abroad.
China’s new coronavirus cases doubled on Tuesday as the number of infected travellers from overseas surged, while new asymptomatic infections more than quadrupled.
New confirmed cases rose to 62 on Tuesday from 32 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said, the most since March 25. New imported infections accounted for 59 of the cases.
The number of new asymptomatic cases rose to 137 from 30 a day earlier, the health authority said on Wednesday, with incoming travellers accounting for 102 of the latest batch.
Authorities do not count asymptomatic cases in their tally of confirmed infections until patients show symptoms such as a fever or a cough. As of Tuesday, 1,095 asymptomatic patients were under medical observation, with 358 of them travellers arriving from abroad.
Slideshow (13 Images)
To stem infections from outside its borders, China has slashed the number of international flights and denied entry to virtually all foreigners. It also started testing all international arrivals for the virus this month.
As of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 81,802, including 3,333 fatalities, the National Health Commission said.
Reporting by Brenda Goh in Wuhan and Ryan Woo, Lusha Zhang, Liangping Gao, Se Young Lee and Yawen Chen in Beijing; Writing by Engen Tham and Gabriel Crossley; Editing by Michael Perry, Richard Pullin and Giles Elgood
WUHAN, China (Reuters) - The Chinese city where the new coronavirus emerged ended its more-than two-month lockdown on Wednesday, even as a small northern city ordered restrictions on residents amid concern about a second wave of infections.
A member of a medical team weeps at the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport after travel restrictions to leave Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and China's epicentre of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, were lifted, April 8, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song
China sealed off Wuhan, a central city of 11 million people, on Jan. 23, a drastic step that came to symbolise its aggressive management of the virus.
More than 50,000 people in Wuhan were infected, and more than 2,500 of them died, about 80% of all deaths in China, according to official figures.
The virus has since spread around the world, infecting more than 1.4 million people, killing 82,000 of them and wreaking havoc on the global economy as governments imposed lockdowns to rein in its spread.
While China has managed to curb its coronavirus epidemic the measures to contain it have exacted a heavy economic and social toll, with many residents in recent days expressing relief as well as uncertainty and worry over the lingering danger of infection.
“I’m going to see my parents,” Wang Wenshu told Reuters as she waited to check in at Wuhan’s Tianhe airport, which reopened on Wednesday.
“Of course I miss them. Stop asking me about it or I’m going to cry.”
Some travellers wore full protective suits, long raincoats or face shields.
Wuhan has slowly been returning towards normal, with people officially allowed to enter the city from March 28, although restrictions remain. Residents have been urged not to leave Wuhan or Hubei province, or even their neighbourhood, unless absolutely necessary.
“We are acutely aware that we must not relax as we have not claimed final victory,” Hubei vice governor Cao Guangjin said at a news conference on Wednesday.
“We need to remain calm, and be just as cautious at the end as at the beginning.”
Shopping malls and the city’s biggest shopping belt, the Chu River and Han street, reopened on March 30. Long queues, thanks to requirements that customers stand a metre apart, have formed at supermarkets while some residents have taken advantage of the warmer weather to resume outdoor badminton games and dancing.
Wuhan has reported just three new confirmed infections in the past 21 days and only two in the past two weeks.
NORTHERN BORDER WORRY
But even as Wuhan came back to life, new imported cases in the far northern province of Heilongjiang surged to a daily high of 25, fuelled by an influx of infected travellers crossing the border from Russia.
On Wednesday, Suifenhe city announced restrictions on the movement of citizens similar to the measures Wuhan has endured.
People must stay in their residential compounds and only one person per family can leave once every three days to buy necessities, and must return on the same day, state-run CCTV reported.
“While the whole country is celebrating the unlocking of Wuhan, few noticed that Heilongjiang is under enormous pressure dealing with infections coming over the border,” one person wrote on the Weibo social media platform.
“Suifenhe is a small city without any high-level hospitals, how can it handle the huge influx of patients?”
Some 55,000 people were expected to leave Wuhan by train on Wednesday. By early morning, more than 10,000 had left by plane, an airport official said. Flights to Beijing and international locations have not resumed.
“I’m very happy, I’m going home today,” migrant worker Liu Xiaomin told Reuters as she stood with her suitcases in Wuhan’s Hankou railway station, bound for Xiangyang city.
People from Wuhan arriving in Beijing must undergo two rounds of testing for the virus.
NEW CASES
China is maintaining strict screening protocols, concerned about any resurgence in infections by virus carriers who exhibit no symptoms and infected travellers arriving from abroad.
China’s new coronavirus cases doubled on Tuesday as the number of infected travellers from overseas surged, while new asymptomatic infections more than quadrupled.
New confirmed cases rose to 62 on Tuesday from 32 a day earlier, the National Health Commission said, the most since March 25. New imported infections accounted for 59 of the cases.
The number of new asymptomatic cases rose to 137 from 30 a day earlier, the health authority said on Wednesday, with incoming travellers accounting for 102 of the latest batch.
Authorities do not count asymptomatic cases in their tally of confirmed infections until patients show symptoms such as a fever or a cough. As of Tuesday, 1,095 asymptomatic patients were under medical observation, with 358 of them travellers arriving from abroad.
Slideshow (13 Images)
To stem infections from outside its borders, China has slashed the number of international flights and denied entry to virtually all foreigners. It also started testing all international arrivals for the virus this month.
As of Tuesday, the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 81,802, including 3,333 fatalities, the National Health Commission said.
Reporting by Brenda Goh in Wuhan and Ryan Woo, Lusha Zhang, Liangping Gao, Se Young Lee and Yawen Chen in Beijing; Writing by Engen Tham and Gabriel Crossley; Editing by Michael Perry, Richard Pullin and Giles Elgood
A member of the Afghan police mans a position at the Thrikh outpost in the district of Nawa in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
KABUL — The Taliban halted prisoner swap negotiations with the Afghan government Tuesday after accusing leaders in Kabul of refusing to comply with a key part of the U.S. peace deal — a major setback to what many hoped would be the start of formal talks between the two Afghan sides.
Representatives of the Taliban and the Afghan government were negotiating the release of more than 100 prisoners. The U.S.-Taliban peace deal called for thousands of prisoners to be released within days of its signing, but the Afghan government quickly objected to that timeline, citing logistical constraints.
The release was already weeks behind schedule, and when the two sides finally met in Kabul, negotiators quickly hit a snag. Taliban representatives wanted their senior leaders included in the first round of releases, while the Afghan government balked at releasing anyone who had helped orchestrate large-scale attacks.
The repeated delays to the start of formal talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government are threatening to upend the fragile U.S.-Taliban peace deal. Since it was signed in late February, violence in Afghanistan has escalated and a power struggle over the Afghan presidency has deepened.
Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post
Taliban fighters drive on a road in Khogiani district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, in December.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday dismissed the impasse over the prisoner releases as “posturing” and said the United States expected issues to arise as the two sides move toward formal talks.
“There was no doubt that there would be steps forward and steps backward,” Pompeo said in a news conference, adding that some progress had been made since the agreement was signed last month. “But we see them posturing in the media.”
Pompeo traveled to Kabul on March 23 to broker a deal between President Ashraf Ghani and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah. Ghani was declared the winner of the September election by a slim margin; Abdullah decried the result as fraudulent and has threatened to set up a parallel government. After Pompeo’s visit failed to resolve the crisis, he threatened to cut $1 billion in U.S. aid to the country.
Statements from Pompeo’s senior diplomats suggest the Trump administration has increased pressure on Afghan leaders in recent days.
“Donors are frustrated and fed up by personal agendas being advanced ahead of the welfare of the Afghan people,” Alice Wells, the State Department’s top official for South and Central Asia, said in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday.
Afghanistan needs billions in foreign aid every year to provide its citizens with basic services, and expert projections estimate the country will remain dependent on aid for years to come. That dependence is expected to be exacerbated if the coronavirus outbreak in Afghanistan worsens. Afghanistan has had more than 400 confirmed coronavirus cases and 14 deaths, but officials warn that the true number could be much higher, as testing has been limited.
Hopes were high when a Taliban delegation arrived in Kabul last week. The visit came after Ghani announced the creation of a negotiating team and Abdullah issued a statement expressing his support for its members. The Afghan government and the Taliban had also agreed on a compromise: The prisoner releases would occur in smaller batches rather than all at once.
The peace deal signed by the United States and the Taliban called for up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners to be released in exchange for 1,000 members of the Afghan security forces and government employees in Taliban custody.
But after days of talks, the Taliban issued a statement Tuesday announcing that the group would no longer participate in “fruitless meetings” and accused the Afghan government of “just wasting time.” Hours later, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen announced in a tweet that the Taliban delegation would return to Doha, Qatar, where the group has a political office.
The Afghan government said the Taliban’s move “indicates a lack of seriousness about peace,” according to a statement from Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Afghan national security adviser’s office.
Faisal said discussions “had entered an important phase” before Taliban officials backed out. Regardless, he added that the Afghan government remains open to continuing talks.
But as peace talks with the Taliban are repeatedly delayed, violence in Afghanistan has spiked. On Sunday, the Taliban accused the United States of violating the terms of the peace deal by carrying out attacks on Taliban fighters and drone strikes on Afghan civilians.
The Taliban statement warned that continued violations would “create an atmosphere of mistrust that will not only damage the agreements, but also force mujahideen to a similar response and will increase the level of fighting.”
A U.S. military spokesman, Col. Sonny Leggett, denied the Taliban allegation, saying that U.S. forces in Afghanistan are upholding the terms of the agreement and that “any assertion otherwise is baseless.”
Leggett said that the U.S. military will continue to come to the aid of Afghan forces and that the Taliban must reduce violence.
The U.S. military is continuing to draw down its forces from Afghanistan, as mandated by the peace deal with the Taliban. The United States began reducing the roughly 12,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan in March and is on track to bring down the number to 8,600 by early July, within the 135-day time period stipulated by the peace deal.
George reported from London. Carol Morello in Washington and Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.
