Obama: Taliban still bent on violence

Hopes of negotiating peace with the Afghan Taliban’s new leader were swiftly fading from all sides Thursday, as US President Barack Obama warned the group will continue killing in Afghanistan.

Obama told reporters in Japan, where he is meeting with other leaders of the Group of Seven nations, that he doubted the insurgents would come to the table “anytime soon.”
“We anticipate the Taliban will continue an agenda of violence,” he said.
Obama was speaking the day after the militants named Haibatullah Akhundzada as their new leader, elevating a low-profile religious figure in a swift power transition after the death of Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike.
Analysts have said it is unclear if Akhundzada, who faces the enormous challenge of unifying the increasingly fragmented militant movement, will emulate his former boss in shunning peace talks with the Afghan government.
But the US killing of Mansour showed that Washington has at least for now abandoned hopes of reviving the direct peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban, which broke down for the first time last summer.
Obama acknowledged that he was never going to find a willing negotiating partner at the helm of the extremist group.
“I was not expecting a liberal democrat to be appointed,” he told reporters.
“My hope, although not my expectation, is that there comes a point where the Taliban realize what they need to be doing” and start getting into a dialogue with the government, he said.
“I am doubtful that it will be happening anytime soon.”
The Taliban has made no official statement on the future of peace negotiations since announcing Akhundzada’s leadership.
But Obama’s comments were reinforced by a senior Taliban source speaking to AFP in Pakistan, where Mansour was killed in the strike Saturday, who said there would be no shift in the militants’ stance.
Obama also criticized presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s policy ideas as demonstrating “ignorance” of how the world works.
Obama said that global leaders are “rattled” by some of Trump’s policies.
“They are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements,” Obama told reporters on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit, referring to global leaders.
“But they’re rattled by them, and for good reason,” he said.
“Because a lot of the proposals that he has made display either ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude or an interest in getting tweets and headlines.”
“I think it’s fair to say they are surprised by the Republican nominee,” he added.

Source : Arab News