Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says he doesn't know when or where President Donald Trump's meeting with the Taliban would take place.
"They have an enormous amount of American blood on their hands," Pompeo said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday. "We're going to see if the Taliban are prepared to live up to the commitments they made."
The president said he plans to meet personally with Taliban leaders "in the not-too-distant future." His comment came after Pompeo led a delegation in Qatar Saturday to sign a peace deal aimed at winding down the war in Afghanistan that turned into the longest conflict in American history.
"It's going to be rocky and bumpy," Pompeo said.
The deal calls for U.S. troop levels to fall to 8,600 within 135 days, from about 13,000 now, and for all U.S. forces to withdraw in 14 months if the accord holds. It leaves the details of a lasting peace agreement between the Taliban and the Afghan government to be hashed out later.
"No one is under any false illusion that this won't be a difficult conversation, but that conversation for the first time in almost two decades will be among the Afghan people," Pompeo said. "And that's the appropriate place for that conversation to take place."
