I misspoke, says Jeff
Posted on 6 hours ago
Jalil Afridi
Washington DC: When The Frontier Post contacted Captain Jeff Davis about his comment with regard to terming Taliban as \”Reconciliation Partners\” he stated that \”Please excuse me as I misspoke in referring to the Taliban as a \”partner\”. They certainly are not.\”
He further said that \”What I meant to say
was, the Taliban�s only path to political legitimacy is through an Afghan-led reconciliation process.
The Taliban have a choice: they can join in a peace process or continue to kill Afghan civilians and destabilize the country. It remains our hope that they will choose peace.\”
Earlier today In what can be termed as one of the biggest policy change by America, the Director of Press Operations, US Department of Defense, Captain Jeff A. Davis while addressing foreign media representatives at the National Press Club Washington DC stated that the US government no longer considers Taliban in Afghanistan as terrorists and that the Taliban are now \”Reconciliation Partners\” in Afghanistan to bring peace and stability in the country.
Captain Jeff A. Davis stated that the US military has now stopped conducting counter terrorism operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan and only targeted operations are done when deemed necessary. While responding to a question about expansion of ISIS in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Captain Jeff stated that there are reports of ISIS growing in that region but stated that \”ISIS does not have the command and control system in Pakistan and Afghanistan in compare to what they have in Iraq and Syria. He further said that a few terrorists groups just use the name of ISIS for the \”branding\” purpose.
Captain Davis extensively briefed the journalists about the US military activities in Syria and said that it is Syria President Bashar Ul Assad who is the major supporter of ISIS and until he is ruling Syria there can be no peace achieved in the country.
Captain Davis termed the Russian presence in Syria as \”wrong\” and said that the Russian government is not only using air force power in Syria but there are also Russian soldiers present on ground in Syria. He hoped that Russian will end its support to Bashar Ul Assad soon in order to bring peace and stability in the country.
He further said that there are no US troops on ground in Syria and that there is a Syrian Arab group which the US government is supporting in Syria and that the United States is providing them with supply of arms and ammunition to fight against the ISIS in the region.
