President Donald Trump warned on Sunday, “What’s going to happen is going to happen!!!” Unless Afghanistan “backs” the air base in Bagram, wanting reporters “quickly” to the US, and linking its value to its proximity to western China.
Washington’s pressure tactics met a solid wall of resistance from Kabul. Taliban officials have rejected the prospect of returning the US troops. “Even an inch of Afghan soil can’t be negotiated,” said Chief of Staff Qari Fasihuddin Fitrat.
On the same day, Defense Minister Mohammad Yakub Mujahid summoned the Doha Agreement. He said when Washington tried to maintain the base in 2021, “If you stay, you’re ready to fight for another 20 years.
Furthermore, Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaki highlighted Kabul’s uncompromising stance in an interview, declaring that even full US awareness and reconstruction aid would not persuade him to hand over the territory to Afghanistan.
He wondered why, if such concessions were possible, the Taliban endured decades of war, the loss of leadership, and the sacrifices of “so many martyrs.” He said the struggle was precisely to assure foreign forces that they could not assert Afghanistan’s soil.
According to CNN, the US president has urged his national security adviser to explore ways to regain control of Bagram Air Force Base since March.
Trump had hinted at the US building the facility in his post, but Bagram was originally built by the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Decades later, after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the base was transformed into Washington’s largest military hub.
The air force base was quickly notorious for its mass detention, torture and occupation machines before falling into the Taliban during its 2021 withdrawal.