US calls on Taliban to end violence in Afghanistan | Al Jazeera

United States defence secretary Lloyd Austin called for a reduction in violence in Afghanistan and said more progress is needed in Afghan peace negotiations before Western forces withdraw from the war-torn country.

“Clearly, the violence is too high right now and more progress needs to be to be made in the Afghan-led negotiations,” Secretary Austin said at a Pentagon news conference on Friday.

“I urge all parties to choose the path towards peace, and the violence must decrease now,” Austin said a day after discussing Afghanistan with NATO defence ministers in Brussels.

The US “will not undertake a hasty or disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan” that puts NATO forces at risk, Austin said, adding “no decisions about our future force posture have been made.”

“In the meantime, current missions will continue and, of course, commanders have the right and the responsibility to defend themselves and their Afghan partners against attack,” he said.

New US President Joe Biden faces a thorny choice in Afghanistan: whether to withdraw all US forces by the end of April – as promised to the Taliban by the former Trump administration – or extend the US troop presence while trying to sustain troubled Afghan peace talks.